


so say goodbye to all my friends, i fell in love with her again

by gottabewhatomorrowneeds



Series: i’ll give you all the nails you need [4]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Comic)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Child Death, Fate & Destiny, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Mysticism, Nonbinary Party Poison (Danger Days), Nonbinary Show Pony (Danger Days), Other, Slow Burn, The Girl (Danger Days) is Trans, Trans Kobra Kid (Danger Days), Underage Drinking, everyone else is there of course, kobra and the girl are ftm and mtf solidarity, maybe? - Freeform, the girl is TRANS, the witch is in so much fucking denial. don’t trust anything she says
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23372674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gottabewhatomorrowneeds/pseuds/gottabewhatomorrowneeds
Summary: In which the Phoenix Witch is just a simple storyteller who carves out the lives of Her characters. But maybe those puppets of flesh and blood aren’t just simply papers in a book, and maybe Party Poison is more than just a character in Her story.
Relationships: Party Poison (Danger Days)/Phoenix Witch (Fabulous Killjoys)
Series: i’ll give you all the nails you need [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1622683
Comments: 15
Kudos: 18





	so say goodbye to all my friends, i fell in love with her again

**Author's Note:**

> **everyone else’s interpretation of the witch** : mysterious, vaguely malevolent creature who’s above human emotion and only meddles in human affairs for the kicks but is kinda serious  
>  **me** : i just think she’s lonely
> 
> if something needs to be tagged let me know!

The Phoenix Witch is a storyteller.

It’s Her job, simply put, to carve out the flesh and bones of Her characters, to explore their nature and skin. It is Her job to write their destiny in the ink that is Her blood, with feathers plucked from Her own crows. It is a job, and She faithfully serves.

She sees all futures, those to come and those that may never pass. She sees them all, those with the highest chance of happening and those with no chance at all. She writes down what Will happen, what is almost for certain going to happen, based on the people She carved into life. What choices they are most likely to make, what events will fall into place like dominos as the creatures She writes push and pull.

Destiny isn’t set in stone- it is written in books. It isn’t chiseled into marble or eroded into the stones of time; it is handwritten with ink and feather into paper, with all the possibilities of those pages being edited and changed and burned and torn and wrinkled and faded.

Her children all have free will- that is why Her stories are more like prophecies, more like suggestions than true destiny. They always have a choice, always have a say in how they live their life, how they decide to die. But She carved them, She wrote them into existence. She molded them with paper and knows their insecurities and deepest fears. She knows them, knows them well and true.

That is why the books bound by nothing but leather and thread are, in fact, destiny. Because She writes down what they are most likely to do, what is most probable of them based on their behaviours, and She decides that that is their fate. But it is never set in stone, because humans are wrought with outliers and a tendency to ruin Her stories by acting out of character.

So it is Her second job to guide them towards their proper fate. She never writes a story without a plan, never creates a character without reason. They all serve a purpose, and it is imperative to Her that they serve it.

At the end of the day, it is always their choice. She can not, will not, force a Destiny on a person who does not wish to fulfill it. But She will push and pull at them, write more and more and more into their story to try to get them to see what they are to Become and Do, try to convince them that their story is not done yet, or that their story has finally finished and it is time to close the book.

It is their choice. She will respect the wishes of the dead.

So She writes stories, just as She always had, from the very beginning of time. Stories about a woman who’s anger and rage becomes so potent her daughter becomes a ticking time bomb. Stories about a disillusioned veteran of a war searching to find a way to destroy BLi and tries to help the rise of four teens. Stories of a man who only wants to write poetry but was forced into a war he never wanted to serve, forced to watch his friends die and remain left in the aftermath. Stories of an old, greedy man who saw the horrors of war and refuses to be ever hurt again and keeps to himself in his quiet little shop. Stories of four teens, four siblings, who spark a revolution within the desert and move mountains to save their little sister.

She writes and writes and creates and creates, creating this little world, this desert bubble. She stands by Her stories, prepared to protect them from whatever threat shall occur to the pages She has poured Her heart into.

And, She corrects the mistakes of Her creations.

-

The first time they meet is simply ten years too soon. She knew as soon as She wrote them, as soon as She chipped away the propaganda of BLi and carved them into who they are Meant to Be, that they would be one of Her most problematic creations. She knew that they would kick and bite at the destiny She wrote, will try to ruin all Her hard work, and most of it will be accidental.

She isn’t surprised when they manage to die ten years before they are due. 

She simply watches as the child slips out of the city years too soon. They’re a sharp kid, though it’s only because their mind isn’t addled with useless drugs whose purpose is to make one submissive and impassive. They’ve been hopping from drug to drug as BLi struggles to find something that’ll stick, that’ll help their chemical imbalance and turn them into the perfect well behaved citizen.

She snorts at the idea of their conformity. If only BLi knew what sort of hellraiser they were raising, if only they could see the future She could see. They would have shot them dead by now.

The child is curious, something no drug has ever been able to tamp down. They search beyond the city, wanting to understand what lays farther out. They watch the Drac patrols for weeks, picking up their easy patterns and exploiting them to escape.

They don’t bring their little sister with them. Their sister proved time and time again that she’s not like them, that she doesn’t like danger and nonconformity and that she’s too drugged up to be of any use. Their escapades into the Lobby and more are done alone, no partner in crime to help them.

They slip into the desert, completely unprepared. They weren’t running away, no- they’d never leave their sister behind for long. It’s a core value within them, to protect and love their sister, that keeps them chained to the city and will be impossible for BLi to ever completely erase.

It’s quite a brutal death for them. But She can not intervene until they die, really, so She simply perches Herself on a cactus to watch over them as they wander about in search of something better, something cool. 

Two days and a desert night proves to be too much for the scrawny child. She finds their body just as the vultures begin to circle about, lavishing over being able to eat. She shoos them away before they start to pick at their bones, before they ruin one of Her creations.

They have no mask, nothing to use quite as an anchor. But they are young, and that means their souls are much, much easier to guide, because they are more solid than those of old, unburdened and unchained. She can pluck their soul straight from their body without a problem. 

And now, She finds Herself face to face with the tiny thing that’s supposed to grow into their heavy destiny. They are openly gawking at Her, soaking in Her divine sight. It is quite a shock to the system, given BLi’s determination to destroy anything not clean and nice and flawless and perfectly fitted into their mold.

She is colour and strange and wears a mask. All those things capture the child’s attention, capture their mind and heart, and She has a feeling this meeting is going to inspire things, though She knows not what.

“You’re so pretty!” The little child finally breaks the silence, watching Her in delight, their eyes glimmering despite the lacking source of light. 

She blinked. That's not the typical reaction upon meeting the Angel of Death, but children are oblivious to the damnation of their lives. It is only understandable that they have no idea who She is, nor what She represents. Religion and magic isn’t exactly a subject BLi teaches in their little schools. They don't even know they're dead.

She does not like children, simply put. They do not belong in Her domain, not until they are taller and wrinkly and have seen all that their story has to offer. She loathes guiding the lost souls of Her tiny creations before their story is due, because they often have no concept of death or what She means. She especially does not enjoy seeing the Flame as a child.

She takes in their own appearance as the child reaches out with grubby hands to catch a wayward feather tumbling from Her dress.

The eight-year-old is much different than the man She envisioned, but human aging is strange and despite all Her efforts, She could never understand how it worked. Either way, this child isn’t the hero She had created, not the character She wrote. They won’t save the desert with their spilled blood, they couldn’t raise the Saviour to Be. They’re eight.

Their hair is bland and lacking the vivacious nosebleed red hair dye. It’s the wrong cut, the wrong length. They’re too tiny and frail and pale to last even a desert night (which of course, is obvious considering they’re here in Her domain). They couldn't shoot down armies of Dracs and defend themselves against Korse’s vengeance.

But it is the Flame. She knows because She remembers splattering those freckles across their nose. She remembers carving that birthmark on their neck. She remembers, and She can feel the aura of a heavy destiny within them. She recognizes the soul before Her, despite its wavering and uncertainty, despite all the physical and personality differences than the hero She carefully crafted. 

She finds Herself disappointed in the creature of paper and ink and flesh and blood. If She hadn’t written their story Herself, She would never believe their tiny shoulders would be able to carry the weight of their destiny.

“What is your name?” She speaks, finally. She always has the hardest time with children- She just knows that it scares them if She says their name without them telling it to Her.

The child spits out their name, something irreconcilably gendered and so completely unlike them. It is not the name She gifted to them, not the name worthy of the hero who will spurn the cataclysm to the end of Battery City, not the name they would choose once they shed the skin of the city and don the mask of the desert. It is false, but now, it is the only thing they may call their own, and She must respect it.

“It’s pleasant to meet you, child.”

“Nice to meet you too, pretty woman!” They glance around, humming. Their body lays only a few feet away, directly behind them. A small part of Her hopes they do not see it so She does not have to explain that they are dead, so She does not have to be the one to steal away the innocence in their eyes. “I’d like to stay and talk, but I need to be getting home. I think I’ve been out here too long, my sister’s probably scared.”

The Witch is not a nurturer, nor maternal in any sense. She has no grasp on human emotions, no ability to empathize. It is not Her job to coddle Her creations, to swaddle them in pages of sweet words of nothing. It is only Her job to write stories and enforce them.

Still, She does not dare mention the fact that their sister didn’t even notice their disappearance. Nor did their plastic parents, whose fleshly counterparts had been replaced years ago, and now reside within the masks of Dracs. 

“I will let you go back to your sister,” She tells the Flame, “in exchange for the most precious item you have on you.”

They seem confused. “What do you mean?”

“What do you possess that you treasure the most out of anything?”

There’s a thoughtful look in their eye as they rummage a chubby hand through the pocket of their overalls. It’s fascinating to watch Her Chosens stumble about in search of an item worthy for a Goddess. She knows they need no material item for salvation, because even if they had no offering, She would have to send them back to the land of the living to fulfill the role She wrote them for. She does not offer a second chance at living through the motive of favoritism- it is simply a mockery at allowing Her people to believe they have a choice in their destiny.

A single stub of a red crayon is presented to Her. The paper wrapping was shredded years ago and the top is nearly completely flat from frequent usage. They send Her a toothy grin, and She notices that they are missing a couple of teeth. 

She does not smile behind Her mask as She picks it up, feeling Her weathered and cold hands brush against the child's small and soft ones. Of course. Red, like the fire that has yet to burn within. Their forever favourite colour, one that they will treasure until the very day their red blood drips out of their body and their soul is reclaimed for good.

No, now is not the time to think about their fixed fate. This is a child with years, however limited they are, ahead of them. They have a life, one that they must go attend to.

“Thank you,” She states. It’s a bit mechanical, something She doesn’t typically say. Their eyes glitter as they watch Her with keen interest. “If you are lost, I believe your home is that way.”

She points to their left, and they turn to look. When they glance back to offer Her a word of thanks, She has disappeared. 

(She watches over them as they wake up in their body. She flies over them as they walk back to the city, covered in aching sun blisters and burns with wounds She can not heal. They make it safe into the city, and She only watches over to make sure that their destiny would not get hampered by any unforeseen events.)

-

She lingers within the confines of Battery City a bit too often, given the fact that She holds very little power and influence there. Her power stems solely from the belief of Her creations, and unfortunately, there are very few souls within the city who know that She exists, let alone believe in Her.

She does not feel the same emotions as humans- in Her would be heart, there is no love nor sympathy nor sorrow. But She does feel a sense of curiosity, and She finds Herself watching over the child She saves in the desert.

She perches Herself on telephone poles and buildings and all the like, watching over the colourless child as they live their life. They continue to grow and grow and grow, their chubby features slimming into something older, slowly gaining height and experience.

They are completely off the pills BLi keeps trying to force down their throat. She watches them bury the pill bottles in a small patch of dirt in the Lobby slums, a place they’ve begun to frequently habit. They suffer through intensive swings as they struggle to keep their emotions in check against all of BLi’s watchful eyes.

Sometimes they are successful- for weeks, the machines they call parents don’t even bat an eye. But then something happens and breaks their cool, emotionless exterior, and they find themselves swinging into a depressive episode or becoming manically energised and those parental units burst into action to force some pills down their throat. The pills never work, though.

She knows they won’t, that they won’t ever properly work, because She designed them just the way they are. Their mood swings and chemical imbalances will stay a part of them, no matter how deeply they desire to tamp it down.

She watches over them, watches as they grow, watches as they become increasingly dissatisfied with their life, as frustration begins to blossom deep in their chest like a flower of fire. Something’s beginning to lurk beneath them, something that festers under their skin, that boils their blood, that blisters their body. A fire is burning, something that won’t be doused by BLi anytime soon. 

They spend more and more time at the Lobby, trying to find a way out. They want to go back to the desert, She knows they are being pulled by the siren call of the sand. They hear stories of killjoys, of rebels and mutineers who seek to bring colour to this black and white world. 

But they won’t leave, not yet. Their sister refuses to see their ways of thinking, refuses to get off the pills, refuses to go against the company that’s ensuing their protection. They are desperate to save their sister, and they will wait until the sun blisters their skin into char for their sister to change her mind before stepping foot into the paradise they believe lies beyond them.

Spending so much time in the Lobby, however, eventually becomes the reason She manages to meet them once again.

-

Not all killjoys are people to be respected. Not all have morals, not all live up to the ideals a killjoy is supposed to have. Not all care about demolishing the system dedicated to homogenising the masses, not all care about saving the world. Some are just dicks.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, that not everything is black and white when BLi has put that filter in front of your eyes. The child sees all these colours, all these people and ideas, but some concepts are much harder to shed than others.

They go to a small concert in the farthest section of the Lobby. The desert is only a block away, only a small sprint towards freedom, and She knows they’re thinking of it as they go to the concert. They just had another fight with their sister, another skirmish where she threatens to report them. She’s too drugged to see the terrors of their reality.

They go to a concert and they try to drown out their feelings in the music. They listen, captivated by the band and their imperfect, unregulated tunes that BLi would kill them for. It’s nothing like the bland pop music that plays or the patriotic static the stations are always pumping. It’s something gorgeous, something that rattles them to the core just like the bass that shakes their bones.

It’s called rock, they learn. It’s a sound they’ve never heard, with all the out of tune instruments and hard screaming and fast guitar solos. They’re completely enraptured.

They are so caught up in watching the band, three teens not much older than them, two with hair dyed the colours of neons and another with frizzy locks that would have been sheared had BLi found them that they don’t notice the gang of killjoys behind them. They bump into each other, a small misstep as the guitarist with frizzy hair jams out.

“Ay, they’re really just letting anyone in here, huh?” The tallest one sneers. The child moves back, apologising, but the one with jet black hair pulls them back towards the group.

“It’s a little kid!” The guy with black hair squeals, and starts pinching their cheeks.

“Cut it out! I’m sixteen!” They’re twelve, but people don’t listen to twelve year olds. They do listen to sixteen year olds.

“You think you’re so tough, dontcha?” The taller killjoy asks, leaning down towards them. “You’re hanging out with the big leagues, learning all about rock and roll, huh, city slicker?”

“You wanna be a killjoy, kid?”

They blink. They don’t like whatever is happening, but the mention of killjoys piques their interest. “Yeah! Of course! I wanna destroy BLi!”

The two men laugh at that. They push the child away from the crowd. “Come on kid, we’ll show you how to be a real killjoy.”

They follow them, eyes glittering just like when they first laid eyes on the Witch. She hovers over the alley way they exit into, glaring down at the two men from Her perch on a balcony. 

“First lesson kid-“ The tall man pulls out his knife. He pushes the tip towards the back of their neck. “-never trust a stranger.”

“And the second?” The black haired man whispers. He pulls out his own knife. “Violence is necessary and important. If you want something, you gotta fight for it. You gotta spill blood for it. The only way you’ll get anywhere in life is by picking fights.”

“Now, give us all your money, city slicker.”

The men begin to pat them down. The child tries to scream, tries to squirm, but the tall man pricks their skin with his blade and that shuts them up out of fear. The kid’s only twelve though- they have no carbons on them.

The black haired man sighs. “‘Course you ain’t got the coins, you’re just a kid.”

“Alright kid, here’s your third lesson.” The tall man draws back their hand, then stabs the child in their left lung. The kid screams in pain, but the other man slaps them before they could get too loud. “Killing’s easy. Dying’s hard.”

The child falls to the ground, and the black haired man kicks them while they’re down. “Killing’s fun. Why let all the Dracs have all the fun when we can kill assholes like you ourselves?”

She does not intervene. It’s not Her place, not until the two men leave and the child is left laying on the ground, choking on their own blood. She doesn’t intervene until the sun dips below the horizon and the wheezing, rattling coughs of the child have died down, until the blood they were coughing up stills, until they lay motionless on the ground.

She feels their soul, and decides that now is the time to rectify this mistake. They are still young, still too young to have a material attachment for the Witch to use as a guide. Their soul is solid, but it burns hot to Her touch. Their soul is filled with fire and brimstone, and She finds Herself nearly getting burned.

They flicker into proper existence as She shifts into Her godly form. They choke, even though they are just a soul and can not breath, choking on nonexistent blood from their nonexistent wound. They stagger towards Her, and She feels them flicker, just for a moment in Her grasp. Their anger is beginning to sear the connection She can hold, the fires within threatening to burn through. 

“They- they-“ the child blubbers, and they glance to their right in time to see their own body, motionless on the street. Blood pools from their wound and their mouth, spilling onto the street and staining the littered, dirty ground. They still, staring at the prone form.

Tears spill from their cheeks. Their soul is sobbing as they stare at their own body, and they twist to face Her. They know what death is, and they know what She means now.

“They killed me?” They whisper, their voice borderline hysterical.

“They did.”

Almost immediately, like flicking a light switch, their tears stop. That fire roars to life, an anger so furious that their eyes lit up. They reminded Her of who they are to Become, and the thought almost made Her smile. Her creation’s eyes light up with the flames of passion as they dry their tears.

“They can’t do that!” They shout. They’re not wailing, not sobbing, but screaming. They’re enraged. “They’re killjoys! They’re supposed to be the good guys! They can’t- they can’t just meaninglessly kill people! They’re not supposed to be the bad guys!”

“In this world, a culture of violence has been taught. BLi perpetuates and touts the necessity of war, and it is a hard thing to unlearn. Some people have become desensitised to the killings BLi commits, and decide that that is simply how the world functions.” She hums. “But you can change that.”

“I will.” There’s a fierceness to their tone. “I’m gonna be the best killjoy there ever was.”

“You will.” She glances at their broken body. “But I think we have other matters to attend to, child. Do you remember our first meeting?”

They blink, glancing back at their body, before glancing back at Her. “Yeah. I do. You’re the angel of death, aren’t you? I’ve seen some murals of you, ‘round here.” They pause, a small smile slipping onto their features. “They never quite get your beauty right.”

She rolls Her eyes. “I’m glad you remember. You know what I demand, if you want a second chance to save the world as a killjoy.”

They nod furiously and begin to dig through their pockets. A single earring is produced, and She opens Her palm for them to gently place it in. “My sister gave me that. When I… got her off the pills once, before she got tired of suffering through withdrawals. Please…”

“I’ll take good care of this.” It’s a promise. She always takes care of the treasures Her creations offer to Her. Sacrifices mean a great deal, no matter how big or small they may seem. “Now, I think there’s a world out there for you to change?”

Their eyes light up, fires smouldering in their irises. Their soul disconnects and She guides it back to their body, gently. She can still feel the rage building within, can feel the fires flaring and kindling within, can feel the heat even after She moves back to the top of the building, even after She watches them slowly get back up and wipe the blood from their mouth, even after they disappear into the streets of the slums.

She feels the heat, the sensation of burning, even after the glow in their eyes and the fire in their soul fades and they cry and cry in the dark of their room.

-

The child gets caught.

She knew this would happen. She wrote this chapter Herself, made sure that it was important and imperative to their destiny, to their impact. She knew it would happen, but it still caused something in Her to stir.

They disappear into the Lobby for too long. Their parents call in to report them, and this just happens to be the last strike on their record. They go back home, and hours later, Draculoids invade.

They tear into the house and pull them out. She watches through the window as the child screams and screams, as they fight desperately and scratch and kick and bite the men trying to tear them away from their sister. There’s a wildfire in their eyes, a storm churning within their soul as they shriek and shriek.

Their sister watches, horror in her eyes as her sibling gets dragged out of their house. They stare their sister dead in the eyes, and She knows there’s so many things they could have said, wanted to say in that one moment that they still had together, but all they end up screaming is, “Keep running!” before a man kicks them to the ground and manages to push them out the door.

The child screams and screams as they get pushed into the van. The sister stares after, and She knows that this is a turning point for the both of them, an event that will cause consequences for years to come as She peers into the sister’s eyes and finds not only fear but resolve. There’s a fire lurking within her, too.

It’s a black day for the both of them, yet She finds Herself smiling. This is the turning point- soon, the child that She met will become the hero She carved and moulded. Soon, they will find their destiny and they will fulfill it. Soon, they will become the Flame, the fires of revolution that will spark life back into the desert, that will leave seeds sprouting in the ashes of their immolation.

-

Their soul becomes tangled.

BLi doesn’t know what to do with them. They refuse to cooperate, refuse to conform to their strict rules and refuse to subscribe to the ‘therapy’ they treat them with. They found colour, they found free will, and they are going to hold on to those concepts until their dying breath, and even then BLi will be unable to pry open their cold fingers.

But BLi figures out what to do with troubled children quickly. They figure out just the right concoction of drugs to sedate them, just the right amount to finally ‘fix’ their chemical imbalance.

The child won’t take them. They scream about fires and revolutions and colours. They slice into their skin and paint their walls red with their blood to remind them of what they found. BLi becomes tired of their antics, but they have the solution to that, too.

They get sent into re-education. They get sent to the tube.

The BLi men stuff them full of amnesia, drown them in the liquid and burn their esophagus. They shove them into the tube to get reprogrammed, and even they are not immune to the systematic destruction of the soul. Their fires get extinguished, their rage sedated, their terror forgotten as their entire identity gets wiped clean and they turn into a shiny white blank slate.

And like they do with all problem children, BLi turns the twelve year old into a soldier. They slip a mask on their face and Drac the child, inducting them into a hazy world of bloodshed and all too visible monsters.

She watches over them on their first mission into the desert, on their second, third, fourth, etc. She watches over them, watches over their soul as it becomes continuously disfigured by the mask they wear, by their lacking identity, by the pills they eat. She watches them pull the trigger on their first kill and feel nothing, feel numb to violence they were perpetrating.

-

The Witch is not known for being kind, though She is never malicious. Her emotional capacity is simply compromised, and She can not understand the feelings of Her creations.

Yet She finds Herself feeling sick as She watches over the child whose story She wrote decades ago. She feels something in Her would-be heart, something tug and yank and pull. Something that makes Her want to break the chains of their destiny, to pull the mask off their face and release them from the torture of the Draculization. It would destroy everything to release them a day too soon, to forfeit all they shall learn on their journey, all they shall find in their role as a mindless drone.

She can not do it. She can not interfere with destiny until a mistake has been made.

(But in those years as a mindless, mindless Drac, they make only a single mistake.)

-

They only get dusted once in their entire time as a Drac. Which is quite the accomplishment, given how often Dracs are burnt to a crisp in the aftermath of a shoot out with killjoys. Dracs are almost always in some sort of turnover- killjoys often burn the bodies of those they kill to ensure their corpse won’t be used to perpetrate evil.

She knows that having them fight as a Drac is a dangerous situation to have placed them in. If they die with their mask on, then their soul will be lost to the mask until the Saviour to Be manages to release all souls from their prison on earth. But that won’t be for another nineteen years.

She finds Herself almost nervous for them, which is odd. It doesn’t matter, not really, because She knew the risks before writing it into their story, and She knows that it will never happen. Yet still, an anxiety flutters in Her would-be heart as She watches over them.

It's just another shoot out, just another day. It’s nothing special, except one killjoy just happens to land a good shot. The blast destroys their mask and burns their face, but the second shot proves fatal as it pierced clear through their heart.

The mask is their anchor now- it holds all their memories, all the ones they have left and all the new ones they’ve made in the last two years. She gently takes it off their head, peels away the fabric from their burnt skin, and awaits for their soul to be called back to their anchor.

The child appears before Her, their expression blank. She knows this meeting won’t mean much in the moment or for a few years- they’re too drugged to truly understand what this all means, and they’ll stay drugged until they aren’t. 

“What do you want?” The soulless soldier demands. Their voice is monotone, so unlike the wonder they had when they first met. 

There are many things She wants, and for some strange reason, She wants to keep this mask and stop them from returning to BLi. But that’s not their destiny- She’s memorized their story, word for word, knows every line by heart. She is one year, eleven months, and fifteen days too soon. She must be patient.

“If you would like to go back to BLi, then I want whatever is most important to you.”

She doesn’t truly believe She’ll be able to trade with them. She may just have to rebound their soul without a second thought. After all, their soul is as smouldering as ice- it’s practically nonexistent.

The Drac before Her remains silent. Their eyes are icy, their face completely blank. She was never particularly good at reading humans, but it was always the eyes that gave them away. They are windows to the soul, after all, but their soul is as iced over as a frosted window. She knows not what they are thinking, if they even are.

Quietly, they slip a watch off their wrist. It surprises Her, though She does not show it. The lesser parts of destiny, the in between moments, the specific details- they’re all much blurrier than the big picture. Things change- that’s why Her creations can die before fulfilling their duty. 

They say nothing as they hold it out to Her, though She knows well enough what it is. Their sister gave them this as a birthday present, just before they were captured. They don’t know this, they don’t know the memories that have leached into the leather and the metal of the item. They just remember waking up with it on, remember it being their first personal possession.

She slips the watch out of Her hands. For just a moment, She sees something glimmer in their eyes, something stir within their soul. It dies quickly, but it is a nice reminder that this is the hero She wrote, the fabulous killjoy She carved from paper, whose story remains an important part of the future of the zones.

“You may return to your servitude.” She points to their body, and they flicker away.

She latches the watch onto Her wrist and watches as the body sputters to life. BLi will have to fit them with a new mask- the mask She has in Her hands will remain with Her, though there are no sentimental reasons as to why She keeps the mask in Her tight knuckled grasp.

-

She flies overhead, watching as they continue to be the perfect Drac BLi wants them to be. They carry out every order given, they don’t speak back, they barely think for themself, and they continue to outperform even some of their superiors. She knows the memories they are creating now will haunt them long after they break free- She knows that that first kill may have meant nothing in the moment, but it will be a guilt that they will shoulder for years and years.

The Director becomes impressed with their work. She is fascinated by machines, by blank slates, by soldiers and war and gore. She loves order and will kill to maintain it. Those who do her bidding are usually well rewarded so long as they prove infallible to the temptations of sin and colour that constantly surround them.

They turn sixteen, and the Director offers a proposition, a promotion. They can become a part of Korse’s S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W program, become an exterminator to lead Dracs into battle. They, of course, take it, because it’s not a choice nor a suggestion. It’s an order.

That is when things change. That is when their fire will begin to spark, when their rage will grow to new heights, when their emotions will guide them towards their destiny. That is when they will be on the path to becoming a killjoy, to becoming everything they dreamed of being as a young and innocent child.

She watches them as they get re-educated. New pills are given, pills that block out different emotions and thoughts, mandated for their new position. They take them, and they don’t even notice a difference, at first.

But those pills are wrong. A single mistake, a pinch of misfortune, a tiny accident occurs that will change the course of history. There’s a delivery issue with those pills- those pills belong to a different exterminator named Flare. Those pills aren’t adjusted to their chemical imbalance, to their strange disorder BLi thinks they ‘fixed’.

BLi will pay dearly for this one mistake.

She watches as the colour floods their cheeks and their vision. Emotions begin to bloom deep within their chest, flowering within as they go on missions like usual, as they go about their daily routines in life. Anger begins to fester deep below their skin, anger and fear and something altogether different and without a name.

She sees the change, despite it being not quite physical. They become aware, as the television makes them feel the pills they ate from the stories of mass killings of killjoys until they stop taking them. They begin to spare the people they're charged with killing, they begin to feel sympathy and empathy for what used to just be their targets. They become human.

Despite all their fear with these emotions they’re feeling, despite the initial disdain, they learn to hold on to these emotions, learn to treasure them and desire them. They pretend the pills they ate are the right ones, pretend to be emotionless and stone hearted as the BLi officials poke and prod and ensure they are working at full efficiency. They latch on to their feelings, they hold them tight and realise their worth, realise the situation they’re in is horrible.

They try, desperately, to keep their mood swings in check. They try, desperately, to keep low and remain as normal as possible. They try so hard to hide what they are, who they are, but nothing ever goes as planned. Fire can not become ice.

She watches as they are chased out of the city, as Drac upon Drac fly down the perfectly paved roads behind them. They had an outburst, their manic paranoia finally destroying the heartless identity they cultivated. They made a mistake, just one, and now BLi is after them, because they know. They know that if this spark remains alive, it will lead to a fire that will burn them.

They escape into the desert and manage to kill most of the Dracs following them. The only sound for miles is their motorbikes, the buzz of electric shots, and Her own beating feathers as the chase continues on and on.

A Drac gets a lucky shot and shoots out their tire. Their bike goes skittering into the distance, and they try to roll off the accident. They manage to keep running on foot, still firing shot after shot at the Dracs chasing after them, until there's just one left.

It’s a lucky shot- Dracs are usually terrible gunmen, though they are typically corpses being puppeteered. The Drac manages to point the gun at just the right angle as the child manages to shoot them right in the heart, and the trigger is pulled just before they collapse to the ground in a heap of white and burnt flesh.

The child falls to the sand as well, but the shot isn’t fatal. Not now, at least.

Paranoia continues to curl within their heart. She watches as they holster their gun and stagger back up. They have to keep moving, they have to keep running before Korse manages to find them, before BLi manages to capture them and re-educate them and erase the identity they finally managed to forge. 

She watches as they run through the desert, as the sun blisters their skin and turns them to char. She watches as they stumble and fall and keep moving, keep moving despite the pain, despite their exhaustion, despite the dehydration they’re developing, until they finally succumb to the blood and water loss nearly two days later, until they stop crawling in the sand and finally go still.

She pulls out their gun from their body, knowing that holds all the memories they have. Their Drac mask was left behind in the aftermath of their accident, and it now means nothing to them, anyway. No, if She wants to call upon their soul, then She must use their gun.

The child appears before Her, their eyes locked on their crisp body. Despite the ink of the night, despite the only source of light being from the heavenly crescent moon, their eyes still manage to find the body laying just a few feet away.

“I’m- I’m...”

“Have you heard the news that you’re dead?” She croons, twirling the gun in Her clawed fingers. They snap to attention, hands twitching towards their holster only to have their eyes drawn to the gun in Her hand.

“I’m dead?” They repeat, the words sounding strange on their tongue as their accent garbles it. 

“Quite so.”

“I remember you.” They tilt their head, almost sizing Her up as they take in Her haggled and bandaged appearance, Her old rags and crow feather clothes, Her clawed fingers and Her expressionless mask. “The angel of death.”

“The Phoenix Witch is what the people here call me.” 

“You saved my life.” They struggle for a moment, swimming in a fog of memories for clarity. “Two… two years ago? I thought… well, I didn’t think much back then, but maybe you were just a side effect from my pills getting adjusted to my age, that you were some hallucination- but you’re… you’re real.”

“As real as can be,” She concedes.

“You’re a lot prettier than I remember, too.” It's absent though, spoken without thinking. A small slip that they don’t even notice, yet it still sends something through Her veins. Disdain? No.

“You’re much more charming than you were two years ago,” She offers back. They blush at Her words and the realization of what they said. “But I think we ought to get to the matter at hand. Do you remember what I told you, two years ago? What the deal is?”

They wrack their brain for an answer, trying to recall those drug addled memories. “My most important possession? Yeah?”

“Yes.” She glances at their charred body. “In exchange for a second chance.”

They glance at themself, staring at their outfit. They don’t bother checking their pockets or smoothing out their clothes- there must be nothing of value on them at the moment. Their eyes creep over to the gun in Her hand, and they blow out a sigh.

“The only thing I could even consider being worth my soul seems to already be in your hands.” 

She carefully considers the idea, feeling the weight of the gun in Her hands. How strange it is, to be offered the same weapon that slayed souls in the desert to save another soul? She does not dwell on that thought for long.

“I suppose this will work. But do try not to die anytime soon, child.”

They smile at Her, timid and quiet. “If dying means running into you again, I can’t make any promises.”

She watches as they disappear, as She guides their soul back to their body. She does not heal all wounds, is frankly unable to, but She keeps them alive long enough before someone comes to save them.

Hot Chimp and Newsagogo’s Volvo skidded to a stop just a few feet before the child’s body. They get out to investigate, prodding at the body and trying to see if there’s any valuables to loot. Moments later, their eyes snap open, and Chimp and Newsagogo start screaming as they come back to life.

She smiles at the sight, and decides to take flight. She won’t be needed for a while, now that the Flame has found a couple of sisters to watch over them.

-

Hot Chimp and Newsagogo are absolutely infatuated with them. They patch them up as they offer their story of being a Drac, and with reluctance, Newsie doesn’t spread the word despite the fact that it’s a, ”Hot topic! It could inspire so many people to learn that even the grunts of BLi can break free.”

With a pretty face like theirs, Hot Chimp and Newsie offer them a home at their club, Bullets. They desperately say yes, not wanting them to rethink their offer and excited at the prospect of a true, proper home. Of course, they have to work for it- nothing is free because nothing can afford to be no matter how pleasant Hot Chimp and Newsagogo are.

They offered to just have them as a messenger or a secretary, but the Flame felt a bit guilty that they got to stay there without much work. So the two allowed them to become a Neon Angel, under the false assurance that the child was actually eighteen.

Just a handful of months finds the child still without a name but with dandelion blond hair and a penchant for red. The other Neon Angels coo over them, finding them adorable and sweet as they stumble over the process of developing a personality. Because of their clientele and the services they provide, it becomes clear that they develop a penchant for being flirtatious, and they very quickly find themself in high demand at the club.

Of course, nothing is perfect, and three months in, the Witch finds Herself having to get involved.

The Neon Angels have retired for the night, all of their hours finally done for. The Flame sits at the bar, drinking alone as the lights strobe and the music blasts. Hot Chimp DJs as always, and Newsagogo is out on a scoop. The other Angels are chatting away in their dressing room, and yet the Flame finds themself too melancholic to participate.

It’s a grand change from BLi, where their mood swings were thought to be evil and wicked and must be controlled and fixed. Here, they are welcomed so long as they don’t harm people, and people remain kind to them no matter the terrible mood they find themself troubled with. At their highs and lows, the Neon Angels still treat them as a person, still remain like a band of kind older sisters and brothers.

A woman with flowing blonde locks sits next to them. She smiles, and they smile back. She orders two drinks, one for each of them, and there’s a couple of butterflies in their stomach at the prospect. 

There’s a banter between them, because they find themself unable to not want to be at the center of someone’s attention. They don’t know why they’re doing this, why they’re flirting with this woman who’s clearly not their type nor their age, why they’re even bothering. This isn’t them, not really.

The woman keeps edging closer and closer. They try to tamp down their paranoia and have a good time. They try to keep their head clear and they slow down on the drinking, just a bit, just to keep aware.

That’s when she does it.

There’s no prelude, no warning. She closes the gap between them and forces a kiss on them. They immediately try to break free, but she grabs their hair and pulls them back into the kiss. It takes a bit of shoving, but she eventually leans back, looking almost angry.

“Come on, isn’t this what you wanted?”

“No, it’s not, can we just-“

“Oh, you’re playing hard to get, huh?” She smiles, and it sends something slimy down their back. “I get it. You wanna act tough.”

She forces herself onto them, pushing them back into the counter. The barkeeper is busy with another customer, and everyone else is focused on partying. No one’s watching them in the dark part of the bar corner.

She deepens the kiss and they can feel her unbuckling their belt. They begin to panic, feeling absolutely terrified in a way they never have before. They buck against her, trying to get her to leave them alone, but she holds strong. Finally, they give up and they bite her lip with enough force to draw a gushing amount of blood.

She draws back, her head snapping up as her eyes flash in pain and anger. “You bitch!”

“I told you, I don’t want this!”

“Isn’t this your fucking job, you slut?” She pushes them full against the counter, but they’re ready this time. They snag one of the bottles they had been drinking out of and smash it against the counter, creating a jagged knife. She yells as they try to slice her, and she backs away.

“God! You’re such a party poisoning whore!” She cries. She decks them in the face, and they stumble back, blood gushing down their lips. It paints their smile something red.

“I like the sound of that,” they say.

And then there’s the gentle hum of electricity, and they’ve spent enough time in war to know what that means, but there’s too many bodies and too many chairs to dodge. The woman pulls out her blaster and fires, staring them down the barrel as she squeezes the trigger.

“No point in letting broken sex dolls live.”

They don’t scream- they’ve been shot too many times before to really think about the pain. They crumple to the ground, and they know attention has been drawn to them from the sound of laser fire. They hope this doesn’t spark another firefight- some of these people take any and every excuse to start brawls.

The Witch doesn’t interfere, doesn’t move from Her spot by the skylight until the blood stops gushing and their breath cuts out. She doesn’t move until their body stills, until their vision goes black, until the sneer on the woman’s face twists into something even more wicked.

They have a mask now, something red and glittery that matches their outfit. The Witch snags the mask off their body and watches as their soul flickers into existence before Her.

Despite what just played out before Her, they don’t even spare a glance at the body behind them. They keep their eyes focused on Her, and they offer a playful smile. “My, my. I never would have thought you were a clubber.”

“I only come when miscreants like you can’t stay out of trouble.”

“Well, you’ve got a Neon Angel.” They send Her a wink. “You want something?”

“Do you?”

They tap their chin. “Actually, yeah. As much as I’d love to be carried off by an angel like you, I do need to clean up the mess I made. So I think I’d like to call on a second chance.”

“Then you know the terms.”

“Of course, baby.” She ought to say something at the flippent term of endearment, but She remains silent. She doesn’t like it, not at all.

They slip off a couple of bracelets. They dump them into Her awaiting hand, and their fingers brush against each other just slightly, as their heat and Her coldness intertwine. Their gazes linger just for a moment, and She knows they can feel Her eyes despite being unable to see them.

“Newsagogo gave me those, you know, to spice up my outfit.” They have a small smile on their face, almost shy. “It’s the first thing anybody’s ever just given to me…”

It’s not true, though She supposed in this life, the new life born of bloodshed and war, it is. Their sister gave them so many things, little treasures that would get lost in time and in war. 

She fingers the beads in Her hands, though it’s not because She’s trying to stall. No, it’s because She wants a better look at the gaudy clothing killjoys seem to be enamoured with nowadays. They’re a set of bangles, rusted but still flecked with gold paint and encrusted in a couple of fake rubies.

“I see,” She finally states. “I suppose you ought to leave.”

They don’t move. “Yes, I suppose so.”

She hands them back their mask, and their fingers brush once more. They wink to Her as they disappear, and She goes back to Her skylight, peering down at the commotion, watching idly not out of curiosity for what is to come, but simply because there is nothing keeping Her otherwise preoccupied.

The Flame snaps to life in Hot Chimp’s arms, who decided to stop the party to see what the hell is happening. Hot Chimp nearly drops their body when they lurch upwards, and the woman who shot them screams and points her gun back out, only to get flanked by some of Hot Chimp’s ‘security guards’.

“Oh, thank the Witch,” Chimp mutters, before glaring up at the woman. “You’re obviously fucking banned. I tell you people day in and day out that the only rule here is no fighting, and y’all keep managing to break it. Escort her out.”

The woman snarls and turns on her heels before the guards can grab her. She walks off on her own, clearly fuming as her heels click against the tiled floor.

“I’m a bad bitch, you can’t kill me,” they state, sending Hot Chimp a wink. She rolls her eyes, but offers them a hand.

-

It’s not the last time the Flame gets into a bar fight. In fact, after that incident, they find themself lurking around the bar in search of them. They scour through the nightclub for incidents like what happened to them, and always make a show of fighting the asshole who instigated the assault.

Newsagogo’s taken to calling them a cherry bomb, but the Flame still doesn’t quite have a name. They keep using their city name, that vile string of letters that defile their true identity, and day in and day out, the Witch finds Herself begging them to just shed the name and shrug on something, anything else until they decide to stick to their Fated name.

The Witch doesn’t watch over them as much as She used to- people are dying at rather alarming rates. After the break out of a Battery City Drac, the desert’s paranoia has spiked to an all out high. Gang wars have increased in frequency as the idea that any of their peers could be a Drac in disguise tests and breaks bonds.

She sticks around only at times to watch events She scripted Herself, events She wrote in the chapters of their life. She loves to watch events unfold just as She had written, just as She planned.

Two months later, after their very first bar fight, Show Pony arrived at the scene. They’re old, old friends with Hot Chimp and Newsagogo, since they’re cousins to Newsie. They make a habit of coming to the club both to see their friends and to get wasted.

Newsagogo is absolutely ecstatic to have Show Pony there. She’s even more enamoured with the idea of the Flame and Show Pony meeting. “You two will hit it right off!”

Of course, that’s going to be the same day She’ll have to intervene. Very few things ever go according to plan for the killjoys.

Newsagogo tells Show Pony everything she can think of to prep them before meeting the Flame. She spills the details of their Drac days and the personality they managed to discover. While Hot Chimp hates Dr. D with a burning passion, Newsagogo has a deep respect for the man, and tries to convince Show Pony to take the Flame to Dr. D so they can become a killjoy.

The Flame doesn’t talk about that burning desire much. They’re too focused on surviving, on protecting those that they know and trust, protecting their Neon Angel siblings and all who enter their nightclub domain. But Newsagogo was a journalist for BLi not because of her good looks, but because of her ability to read between the lines and piece things together. She can see the fires churning within the Flame, can see the smouldering passion to do something spark like flint.

Show Pony would have taken them to Dr. D no matter what. They never could deny their cousin much, and they know she has a tendency to be good at reading people.

But it’s this situation that draws their attention, this particular moment that makes Show Pony truly aware of the person Newsagogo describes. And this is the moment they become just as invested as Newsie, because they too can sense someone with a destiny larger than life.

The Flame is picking another fight, goading a Ritalin Rat into a knife fight after watching the guy harass another Neon Angel. The guy is enraged that this kid is distracting him from the woman he was fondling, and whips out his blaster.

The Flame just laughs and tackles the man to the ground. The two wrestle to the floor, and the Flame manages to knock the gun out of his hands. The people in the club move around them, and some of them get caught up in the hysteria of dripping blood and broken flesh, and fights begin to break out.

“That’s right!” The Flame shouts as they kick the man in the ribs, as they see people start to break skin and blood splatters on the floor. “This ain’t a party!”

The man smacks their head to the ground, but they just keep yelling. “Fuck up those who hurt you! Stand up for yourselves! Don’t let people walk all over you! You see shit happening, you say something.”

Laser fire suddenly sounds. The fight is escalating, and people are quickly turning this into brawls. Newsagogo dumps Show Pony to snag Hot Chimp so they can break up the fights. Show Pony doesn’t intervene- they stay behind this time, just watching.

“Get off the dance floor!” Hot Chimp screams. “Kill the party! This is a gang war!”

The man snatched up a knife that fell to the ground. The Flame’s too busy watching all the mass hysteria to notice the man managed to gain an upper hand, and they notice too late when the man swipes at them with a knife. The slice cuts into their stomach, just a flesh wound, but the next slash turns into a stab, and the Flame feels themself choking on their own blood once again.

The knife slides through their larynx, and manages to pierce an artery in the process. The Flame falls to the ground, coughing and spitting out blood as the knife in the man’s hand drops to the floor. 

The Witch doesn’t intervene, doesn’t move until the Flame stops coughing, stops gurgling up blood, stops squirming on the ground. She doesn’t intervene until Show Pony tries to give them medical attention, tries to stop the blood loss with their own shirt, and puts pressure on their corpse.

She grabs their mask again, rubbing Her claws over the beads as She awaits their arrival. They stumble awake, hands instinctively going for their throat. She stares at them, mustering up the most displeased expression She could possibly create with Her mask on. It works, because they offer only a hesitant wave.

“Wow, your beauty sure makes me speechless,” they purr. At the lack of a reaction, they continue, “You know, cause I just got stabbed in the throat?”

“I’m aware.”

They sigh. “Okay, not the best time. I’d say it’s nice to see you, but maybe we should stop meeting like this. It kind of makes me look bad, doesn’t it?”

“I would ask you to stop picking fights, but I know that is a pointless thing to do.” They wink at Her. “Now, let’s get you back to the land of the living before Show Pony has a stroke and I have to carry off their soul into the afterlife.”

“Yes ma’am!” They toss a tube of lipstick at Her, and She catches it with the ease one obtains through thousands of years of existence. She sends them a dirty look at that, but all they do is shrug. “It’s from Hot Chimp! She said it was my colour, but I think it would look pretty good on you, too, baby.”

It’s fiery red, reminding Her of fire trucks from days before the wars. She opens the tube and rolls the lipstick up, not to delay them from returning to their body by creating a show of evaluating the item, but because She wants to ensure the quality. She shuts the lid and rolls it in Her palm for a few minutes.

Their eyes never leave Her. They’re glittering in the bouncing neon lights, like stars in the night sky. It doesn’t matter to Her, but it’s nice to see how life is seeping into their bones, how they’re becoming more and more human every day.

“I’ll let you go,” She states. “But no more bar fights, and no more pet names.”

She hands them their mask, letting their fingers brush and lingering just a breath of a second too long. She knows they won’t abide by Her demands, and She finds Herself uncaring and impassive to the idea that they won’t follow Her rules.

They jump to life, spitting out blood right on Show Pony. Pony lurches backwards, dropping their hold on their neck. “Oh my god!”

The Flame grins, their lips painted red not from lipstick and their teeth stained pink. “I’m not god, but I’m pretty close.”

-

Show Pony ends up dragging the Flame to Dr. D. They see something about them, something important, something different, and they know the doctor is going to want a piece of this. Newsagogo and Hot Chimp send them off, and the Flame is becoming excited at the prospect of becoming a true killjoy.

Hot Chimp isn’t pleased with letting them go. She doesn’t trust Dr. D and his mad grabs for destroying BLi- she knows that Dr. D will do anything and everything to gain even an inch of ground against BLi, and if that means throwing away the Flame’s life in the process, then so be it. Still, she sends them off with little fanfare. If they don’t like the life they make for themself under Dr. D, then they can always return home.

The Flame still remains nameless, still contemplating on the inspiration they received on their first fight. They know what they want to be called now, but they won’t share it until they’re certain that every last cell that’s still stained with city life has been shed.

Things don’t go well on their road trip back home, because wherever the Flame goes, trouble always follows.

It’s a long drive back to Dr. D’s place. They’re three zones apart, and each zone takes hours to drive through. California is larger than many of its inhabitants seem to believe.

They ride on the back of Show Pony’s motorcycle, letting the breeze toss through their hair. It’s peaceful for a good while, and the two manage to drive all the way to a gas station on Route Guano in zone three. There’s a couple of other people there, filling up gas cans. 

She perched Herself on the very top of the roof, supervising the group of killjoys as they collect their gas.

The sounds of engines fill the air, and all the killjoys look up at the same time. BLi vans were cruising down the desert at high speeds- a Drac patrol was about to intercept them.

The killjoys scattered like ants, frantically getting in their vehicles and trying to dash away. They split up in multiple directions, and Show Pony and the Flame get chased towards the east with a boy with curly hair.

The Dracs are relentless as they split up, two vans after Pony and them. The Flame snags the blaster from Pony’s holster and shifts a bit, keeping their legs tight and squeezing the motorcycle to make sure they won’t fall off. The Flame fires off shot after shot, hitting the windshield and killing the driver of one of the vans.

The Dracs are shooting right back. A laser manages to nick them and another blows out the tire of the boy with curly hair. The motorcycle perilously tips over and they go skidding. 

“Shit!” The Flame yells. “Pony, we got to help them.”

Pony doesn’t say a word. The Witch flies over them as Show Pony weighs their options, but they’re taking too long. The van skids to a stop near the crash sight of the boy, and the Flame makes a snap decision. They jump from the bike, rolling on the sand to try and break their fall. Pony screams but they ignore it, sprinting right towards the heat of the fight.

They send off a round of shots at the Dracs exiting the van, and that’s when they see it. One of the Dracs has their gun out, angled right at the boy’s head, who’s trying to ignore the concussion they have and is dizzily sitting up.

They slide straight in front of the Drac, shooting down some of the others as they make their entrance. They send a shot straight into the Drac’s head as they squeeze the trigger on their own, and two things happen at the same time.

The Drac drops to the ground, the gun clattering beside their lifeless body. The shot hits the Flame’s heart from their back as they duck over the body, shielding him with their body. Their own gun drops from their hand and they collapse on top of the curly haired teen, smouldering flesh filling up the air.

She doesn’t step in until their eyes slide shut, until their last breath puffs hot air onto the teen’s skin, until their fingers stop twitching. She steps in as the motorcyclist pushes the body off them, as the sounds of laser fire fill the air.

Their mask resides in Her fingers as they snap into existence. They blow a kiss at Her. “Hey, baby doll!”

“I see you’re making quite the name for yourself.” This was a stepping stone, just like their bar fights. This isn’t ceaseless violence without meaning- they’re fighting because they believe in what they’re doing. They’re trying to do the right thing, their morals are slowly coming together, and She finds Herself ever closer to the final form of the hero She moulded from the sands of the desert.

“I’m tryin’.” They lazily shrug. “Though I don’t got a real name quite yet.”

“Oh, I know you do. You’re just waiting for the right time, aren’t you?”

The smile stretches across their entire face. “I am. Gotta wipe off the city stains still bleaching my bones before I use it, though.”

“Maybe the time for you to speak your name is coming soon.” She twirls the mask in Her fingers. “I don’t see a speck of the paint BLi drizzled you in to cover up your imperfections.”

Their cheeks turned a soft pink. “You wanna hear my name?”

“I already know it. But the next time we meet-” Because there will be a next time, She knows there will be many times before they finally bite the dust and meet their true ending- “after you’ve spoken it to your peers, tell it to me yourself. But now? I think it’s time you clean up your mess.”

She doesn’t care about their name. She already knows it- She gave it to them, all those years ago when She was writing the story of a child who grows up to spark a revolution that will outlive them. She chose it just for them, every syllable and letter carefully printed into their book. 

“Ah, of course.” They snap a necklace off their neck, something sparkly and dangly. “It’s from one of the Neon Angels, Emily. After I saved her from that asshole who, uh, stabbed me to death not long ago. You were there for that.”

“I recall.” The necklace gets passed to Her, and She clamps Her claws over the silver chain. It glitters in afternoon sun, sparkling like a star in the night sky. There’s a couple of charms that dangle, though they’re obviously not the original ones. They’re bottle caps that shine in the light.

She takes Her time, fingering each cap. She knows the value of this, knows that it would pass Her inspection, yet She still finds Herself putting on a spectacle as She investigates it. 

“It’s enough,” She finally decides. She places the mask back in their hands, and She finds Her claws lingering for a moment too long, and She quickly yanks Her hand away. Touch is sacred and must be treated as such- casual brushes of skin are beneath such a goddess as Herself.

They just grin. “See you later, babe.”

She watches them jolt awake in the middle of the firefight that’s broken out. Show Pony’s fighting three of the Dracs single handedly, their gun inches away from the Flame’s hands. The person they saved is firing away at the Dracs, protecting their body from the monsters that lurk too close.

They snatch the gun and join the fray, startling the curly haired boy. The firefight begins to die out as the two work together like clockwork, moving around and around and protecting each other’s backs as the Dracs begin to die off, until they shoot the last one dead in its tracks.

The boy they saved whips around to face them. “Holy shit man! Thank god you’re alive! I thought you were missing a pulse, but I’m glad to see I was wrong.”

They grin at him as Show Pony skates over, wiping the grime from their outfit. “It’s gonna take a little more than a Drac patrol to kill me. What’s your name, huh?”

“Jet Star.” He offers his hand, and they take it. However, Jet doesn’t shake it- he pulls them into a one armed hug that catches them off guard. “Thanks man. You just saved my ass.”

“No problem.” 

Show Pony leans on the Flame’s shoulder, grinning as they flip the viser of their helmet. “Jet Star! It’s been quite some time, honey.”

“Ha, yeah.” He offers them a smile. “I need to check out your roller derbies more often, but I’ve been a bit busy.”

“I hear ya.” Pony glances at the motorcycle, the tire flat and parts of it shot out. “Man, I’d give you a lift home, but I can’t fit three people on my bike.”

“It’s no big deal. I can hotwire one of these vans, no biggie.” He rubs his fingers through his hair. “Man, I better be going. I got a friend waiting for me, I know he’s gonna get really anxious if I’m late.”

“Catch ya later, honey!” Pony blows a kiss. “Good luck!”

They skate off to retrieve their bike, and the Flame begins to follow. Just as Jet was about to get into the van, he spins around and calls out for them. “Hey! Wait!”

They glance back. “What’s up?”

“What’s your name, kid?”

A smile stretches across their face. It’s not malicious like the one they had while fighting against the asshole drunks. It’s not coy like the one they wore while meeting with Her. It’s something different, something stronger.

“Party Poison.”

-

She follows them home after collecting the souls of those who weren’t as lucky in the Drac raid. She just wants to make sure they don’t get into any more mischief, because She’s frankly not sure if they can afford it. It feels as if they are running out of personal possessions to offer as sacrifices.

Show Pony delivers Party Poison with otherwise little fanfare. Cherri Cola and the Dr. Death Defying are awaiting their arrival, and Party Poison meets the desert’s airwave master. The only other DJ on the radio waves is Hot Chimp and Newsagogo, who offers intel while Chimp plays music. However, they are often rather busy running Bullets, and so the desert finds themself trusting Dr. Death Defying and his merry band of radio heads.

Dr. D takes an immediate shine to Party Poison. He knows a treasure when he finds it, and he can feel the fires that rage within them just as She had. It is a part of their destiny to be guided by this man, but She has never felt such a strong desire to rip Party Poison out of that man’s slimy grasp.

Simply put, She loathes Dr. D. The man destroys countless of Her stories every day in his pursuit of justice against the mega corporation. Despite his benevolent intentions, his views on destroying BLi are extreme, and he does not care about the sacrifices that must be made to ensure the crumbling of an empire.

He burns the pages of lives She carefully crafted, he leads Her creations astray from their path. But She knows that won’t happen with Party Poison, She knows that he will guide them right down the path towards their inevitable immolation. She foresaw the inevitable as Dr. D advises the children on how to bring down BLi and sacrifices them to create four teenage saints to stir up revolution in the veins of the desert people.

Party Poison meets Dr. D. Their story continues to unfold and grow, and She finds Herself fascinated in watching how their life will pan out, in the minute details She could not be bothered in writing.

-

Party Poison finds themself becoming a killjoy. They are living their dreams, finally, after ten years of slumming in the Lobby and destroying the very people they had wished to become.

Dr. D sends them on missions, curious about their actual abilities. It’s all a game to him, testing them to see how far he can push and pull on them, see how far their abilities can land them. And time after time, Party Poison proves themself valuable.

It’s on one of these missions does Party Poison find something they didn’t even know they lost.

They’re driving back home in Cherri Cola’s pick up truck, borrowed until Poison can find something of their own. Cherri doesn’t mind- he spends most of his days in Dr. D’s basement, trying to write poems before his broadcast. A life on the road is something he gave up along with his gun.

The sounds of laser fire catch their attention, and they slam the gas to find the source. She follows after them, knowing exactly what they are to find, and curious as to if this will go according to plan.

There’s an all out shoot out. Three vans of Dracs have swarmed a graffitied BLi motorcycle that’s obviously being repurposed for killjoy excursions. There are two figures surrounded on all sides, huddled back to back as they fight off the men. 

Party Poison grins as they slam on the brakes and pull out their own gun. She watches them as She lands on the branch of a Joshua tree, trained solely on their recently dyed red hair.

It flickers in the sunlight, creating the illusion of fire burning on their head. Finally, a colour that matches what lurks within their soul. They’re becoming more and more like the character She wrote, and yet as She watches them slide into the middle of the gun fight, She finds Her excitement dwindling. 

The day of reckoning, the day of their ascension and the day of their death seems something strangely far away, and something She’s not sure She finds interest in seeing.

They slip into the fight with ease, taking down some of the Dracs with their slick trigger finger. They fight as if that’s all they’ve known, dancing across the battlefield like a ballerina performing on stage. They don’t move as rigidly as they did as a Drac, their movements fluid and much more showy than the minimalist techniques of war.

The Dracs are steadily dwindling. Party Poison is resetting their gun when they notice that the two figures have split up. They recognise those curls that bounce as Jet Star tumbled into a fist fight with a couple of Dracs. The other fighter is someone they haven’t met before.

Shots start going off like crazy with the other fighter. He’s trying to take down a group of Dracs, but they’ve got him covered on nearly all sides now. Party Poison sees them ambushing him and they jump into the fray, shooting round after round against the Dracs.

Dracs don’t often have the highest intelligence, thanks to their soul being shredded apart and the pills they eat suppressing just about everything in them. But sometimes there’s a glimmer in them and they manage to hit true and they manage for just a moment to perform like a normal human.

Party Poison sees the shot long before the other kid does. They fire off a couple of rounds before pushing the kid to the ground, trying to shove him out of the way. The kid curses on the way down, and Party Poison makes sure to cover him with their body as the shot skins their shoulder. The shot was headed right towards the back of the kid’s neck.

Of course, in the split second it took for Poison to push him to the ground, a different Drac was able to manage a decent shot. The blast shot through Party Poison’s head, and the Witch didn’t even have to wait very long this time to intervene. The moment Poison hit the ground She felt their soul escape through their last breath.

She snatches the mask off their face, sighing. The kid beneath them struggles, and Party Poison’s blood splatters their cheek as he shoots a rapid fire of shots. The kid is clearly terrified out of his mind, having a body right on top of him.

“Great job,” She states as Party Poison flickers to life before Her eyes. “You just traumatised a fifteen year old.”

“Fifteen year old?” Poison glances at the kid, who’s crying now, mumbling beneath his breath as he shoots a couple of Dracs with a bit too many shots than necessary. “Damn. I mean other than the fact that he’s like, super tall, I thought he was twelve.”

She rolls Her eyes. “Come on, now. Hurry and give me your possessions so you can stop that kid from staying traumatised at having… a stranger literally die on him.”

“Hey, you don’t gotta rush this. It’s almost like you don’t enjoy spending time on our dates.” They shake their head in an exasperated manner before digging into the pocket of their jean jacket. They haven’t found the iconic Dead Pegasus jacket, haven’t fully cultivated their signature look just yet. “Here you go! Cherri Cola gave this to me! Said I was his muse, whatever that means, and he wrote me a poem!”

A wrinkled piece of paper gets set in Her palm. It used to be a newspaper from before the wars, but scrawled over it in vivid red ink are letters in a handwriting She knows well. Cherri Cola sends letters by the week for those who pass, and She has become quite acquainted with his prose and the way he dots his i’s and crosses his t’s.

She reads it once, twice, even a third time to stall just a bit. She oughtn’t do that- they have a destiny to achieve, and the two people they just met are going to guide them towards it. She can’t ruin Her perfectly written plan, She can’t become the antagonist of Her own story. 

She smooths out the paper. “This will work. Please, do not return anytime soon.”

“And stay away from your gorgeous face? I’d rather be stuck in purgatory than that!” They take the mask She offers them, and send Her a wink as they disappear.

She watches them jolt back to life just in time to shoot two Dracs behind the tall kid. Jet Star is rushing up to help the two, but by now, the Dracs have practically all died off. The kid sends a couple more rounds, and the only living souls for miles becomes just those three kids.

“Party Poison!” Jet cheers. “Wow! You sure have impeccable timing.”

Party Poison blows the hair out of their eyes and gives Jet a wave and a smile with no teeth. “What can I say? I’m just that good.”

The tall kid’s eyes are latched onto Party Poison’s face. The Witch knows why. “Party Poison, huh?”

“That’s my name!” Party Poison twirls to face the kid. “I didn’t know you had a little brother, Jet.” The kid winces at the words.

“Ha.” Jet slaps the kid’s back. “Not by blood. He’s been trailing behind me for months now, like a duck!”

“I’m Kobra Kid,” the lanky child states, sending a glare to Jet Star. “Nice to meet you. You guys know each other?”

“Yeah, Poison saved my life!” Jet raps his chin. “Hey! We should hang out a bit! I’d like to get to know you!”

“Asking me on a date?” Poison’s lips curl into a grin. “That sounds great, but I gotta bounce. Cherri Cola needs his truck back.”

Jet Star squints at Poison. “Oh, I see. See you around, man!”

Poison gives a two fingered salute. “You too!”

-

The same day Party Poison stopped taking their pills, all those months ago, was the same day their younger sister stopped living life in Battery City and slipped out into the desert. The day Party Poison was stolen from their home was the day their brother swore off any of the pills BLi pumped into him.

The day their sister left Battery City was the same day she chopped off all her hair, the same day she became their little brother. 

The Witch watches as Party Poison drives into the distance. She doesn’t follow, not yet, as She watches over Jet Star and the Kobra Kid, who are snagging guns off the corpses of the Dracs and trying to clean themselves. She watches the Kobra Kid, as he stares off into the horizon, his eyes trained on the truck long after it slips into obscurity.

It has been years since they have seen each other, and despite the pronoun change, despite the staggering change in personality, despite the hair dye and the radical new style, despite the new scars and blemishes that didn’t exist when they were twelve, he recognises them. He knows those eyes, knows those fires that burned so hot BLi tried to extinguish them all those years ago, those freckles that reminded him of the starry nights he would read about, that voice that would goad him into rebellion, that would scream at him to save himself and leave them behind for a better life.

He knows.

-

She lurks about the radio shack as Party Poison finds their niche amongst Dr. D and proves themself something of value. She haunts the skies as Party Poison goes on more missions, watching over the Flame as they fulfill a few meagre tasks before their destiny arrives.

One day, on the cusp of their seventeenth birthday, Dr. D tells them some vital news. “I’ve invited a couple of people I think you’ll be interested in meeting.”

Dr. D wants to push them into a gang. Killjoys never work alone, because working alone will never work if the goal is to destroy BLi. One person can only do so much; humans have limits. It’s imperative to find a couple of people you know you can trust with your life, and it’s important to keep those people close.

She watches in curiosity from the window as the door unlocks. She knows what is to come, who is behind the door. She knows what will happen, She knows exactly how this will pan out. Yet She finds Herself captivated by the true meeting of the first three members of the most influential gang to ever roam the desert.

Kobra Kid and Jet Star waltz in, clearly just as shocked as Poison is to find them. “You work for Dr. D?”

“You do, too?” Jet laughed. “Of course this is the wildfire Dr. D wanted us to meet.”

“You all have met before?” Dr. D asks, because he does not like not knowing things.

“Yep.” Poison doesn’t elaborate, purposely irritating the old man.

“Well, I told you we should hang out. Guess this is our chance.” Jet Star offers a hand. “I’m excited to see where this will take us.”

Poison’s eyes glimmer as they take their hand right back. “I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna become something special.”

-

De. D speaks to each of them in private; She listens to the ways he describes Her creations. She listens to how he speaks of the Flame, the Protector, and the Pillar, believing that if they want to become a crew, they ought to have all the facts straight.

He tells their stories to each of them, whispers to Party Poison about Jet Star and how his mothers died when he was young, how his older brother was exterminated in a nasty firefight. How he spent his time with two other gangs only to be left the only survivor in the aftermath of the events that killed his friends. How Kobra Kid escaped the city a year ago after watching his sibling get kidnapped into the treacherous claws of BLi after years of refusing to listen to them. How Kobra Kid was found by Jet Star and how the two remain as thick as thieves.

She listens to how he speaks of the Flame, their story of breaking free from BLi’s clutches. Dr. D doesn’t share that they were a Drac, believing that wasn’t his place, but does note that they have blood on their hands and guilt for it. He speaks of how broken they are, how fractured everything about them is, their morals and their mind, and She laughs at everything he says.

Dr. D is not a storyteller, not like Her. He weaves his words with careful lies, carefully injecting his own brand of poison and carefully piecing their stories together in a way She would never allow.

She does not intervene, and simply watches.

She knows what they are to Become.

-

The trio become something terrible in the zones, a force of nature BLi finds themself unable to reckon with. They begin to launch grander scale missions, missions that begin to have meaning, that spark hope in the hearts of the people of the desert.

Party Poison becomes a figurehead of rebellion after one important mission. The trio sneaks back into the Lobby, into the slums. Their goal was to recruit some of the people into the killjoy faction, but BLi happened to be launching a program of keeping some of the Scarecrows out of the pornodroids hands. 

Immediately, the Dracs and the exterminators sent to clean out the Lobby turned their weapons on the three. It was an all out brawl in the streets as they fought while the citizens cowered. BLi began destroying buildings in their pursuit of the so-called criminals, and started sparking fires.

“Get up and fight!” Party Poison called to the killjoy wanna-bes, who all cowered behind a building. Citizens were sent scrambling away from the gun fire, terrified out of their minds that BLi was going to kill them. “They’re destroying your home! They’re trying to kill you! Shed your yellow and use your guns! Stand for something! Don’t die on a plateau of neutrality when you long to defend your hill! They will offer you no mercy even if you stand to the side, so might as well stand for something!”

Party Poison gives a speech, trying desperately to get the people to their feet. There was no way they’d be able to slay every single Drac on their own- the sheer size of the group was impossible. They couldn’t escape without the help of the people.

Their voice became like a siren call, and Party Poison found themself in the epicenter of a storm as the killjoy wanna bes became killjoys that day, smashing vending machines and pulling out guns. An all out riot broke out in the halls of the Lobby as some of the Underground decided to join in on the fight, as the people began to fight for something and believe in it.

They gain instant recognition for the fight, for instigating a riot with just their words. They’re becoming the hero She envisioned them as all those years ago, fighting alongside the people for a future that no longer feels so far fetched. They are Becoming. 

They transform into something more, something different. The desert begins to praise them, begins to lavish them as a messiah from the Witch Herself, a blessing that will break the chains of BLi and release the people from their isolated hell.

More and more missions take place, and the desert’s heart beats in unison with theirs. The people are enamoured with all three of them, putting them on pedestals to worship because they are too cowardly to fight with them, to provide with them, to go after an attainable destiny when three teenagers seem to be doing it.

They are becoming something more. They are the Flame, stirring up the fires within the people, sparking the fires of revolution, signing siren songs of coups and freedom. They snatch the power of the radio from Dr. D and use their sickly sweet voice to sing their own lullabies, to remind the people of the power they hold. 

The desert is changing.

-

The fourth member appears not long after their popularity takes a sharp turn up. The people become captivated with Party Poison, whose red hair becomes a symbol for anarchy, whose blue jacket becomes a signature colour of rebellion.

Fun Ghoul, who spent his life alone, fending for himself, doesn’t care much about the three heroes, about heroes in general. He doesn’t even know what they look like. He’s in for a nasty surprise the day he tries to mug Kobra Kid with his rusty knife for the Power Pup he was trying to bring home.

Party Poison takes an instant shine to Ghoul, despite their initial fight. Ghoul, however, seems completely content living his life of isolation, and Jet Star is rather displeased at the idea of befriending the bomb maker, knowing of him as the feral hermit with a penchant for explosions and bloodlust who wanders about the zones (“Do we have to adapt that rat?”).

But somehow, Poison manages to speak just the right words, and somehow, Ghoul manages to become tempted with the idea of joining their crew, if only at first to get some food, then some friends.

The group comes together. In the aftermath of blood and fire, the Fabulous Four are finally forged. The Flame, the Protector, the Pillar, and the Survivor have finally come together with the Saviour to Be.

They each hold their own secrets. Ghoul and his parents, who were a part of the Original Killjoys that Dr. D desperately wishes to emulate, and their slaughter right before his eyes. Jet Star and his past gangs, his past failures, and how every friend of his manages to end up ghosted like his mothers and his older brother. Kobra Kid and his missing sibling who isn’t so missing, who remains close to his side yet with a memory so blank they might as well be miles and miles away. Party Poison and the blood on their hands, with faces and names that scream at them for the mass graves they had to buried in because of them (and the name of Jet Star’s brother, whose face they remember well in the dying light of the sun as they fired the bullet that would end his own light).

There are somethings that won’t ever be whispered unless they’re on the roof of the diner under the cover of the inky night, or in the back of the trans am when the sun has died and it feels like the only two people alive are the two sitting on the trunk of the car. Or somethings that won’t ever be spoken out loud.

-

She meets Party Poison once again a few weeks after they met Ghoul. Another firefight happens, but that’s not what kills them. In the aftermath of that firefight, one of the children they saved says words that rattle them to the core. 

“Wow! I wanna be just like you! You’re my hero!”

Party Poison just smiled at him in that moment and said, “Ah, you can do better.”

But those words seemed to have stuck with them, and they didn't let them go. The Witch watches over them after that exchange, knowing something big was stirring. They begin to spiral into one of their ‘moods’, something not quite depressed but a bit too desperate, a bit too sad to be manic.

When the rest of their crew is sleeping, they slip out of the diner and snag the trans am. She flies overhead, watching over them as they slam the gas and make the car go as fast as possible, pushing the speedometer higher and higher until the arrow threatens to break and the engine rises something mangled and jarring, but they don’t let up as the world streaks by and fades into nothing but ink.

They don’t stop the car until they reach Bullets. They stay inside long after the brakes squealed in protest at being slammed and the car teeters to a halt. They stay inside the car, gripping the steering wheel as they catch their breath, as their knuckles turn white.

They slam the car door and head inside the club. They don’t say a word to Hot Chimp and Newsagogo. They left their mask in the car, left their jacket at home, and they tried to ignore the way their hair caught attention. They try to blend in, to become nameless drunk that nobody thinks twice about.

They order shot after shot, and She watches as they slip into destructive behaviours. During their time as a Neon Angel, it was easy to slip into something self destructive. Getting black out drunk after a particularly bad night or seeking out some risky person who seemed like in that moment they could provide some sort of comfort, in bed or with words, through the heat of conjoined flesh.

Party Poison tried to clean up their act, tried to become something better for their crew mates. They were a killjoy now- they can’t allow themself to self destruct, not when BLi will use their weaknesses and twist them against them.

But something seems to have snapped in them, and they’re downing more alcohol than usual. They slip onto the dance floor and put on their usual charms, and they lure away their victims into some of the back rooms of the club. She watches over them, peers through the windows as they make their moves around the club, as they find more and more people to lie with and more shots to down,

They’re being reckless, and not the heroic, killjoy-esque brand which saves lives. No, this recklessness is going to get themselves needlessly killed.

She peers through the bathroom window, noticing Party Poison taking too long to exit. Their vomiting into a toilet, and the awful sounds echoes in the silence along with the thrum of a heavy bass tab. There’s no one there except for them and Her, no one to hold their hair back or wipe away the tears that are streaming down their face.

They drop to the floor, their breaths heaving. She clicks Her tongue, an odd sound coming from Her beak, knowing what is to come. Too much hard alcohol in too short of a time.

She waits beside their body as the sun begins to climb overhead, until their breathing slowly weakens to nothing. She gently pulls the mask from their sweat stained face, pushing the hair out of the way as She holds it right in Her hands. Her claws don’t linger at the touch of something sacred, they don’t waste time feeling the burning skin of the Flame under Her fingers.

Their soul flickers into existence. 

The disappointment on Her face must be apparent despite Her mask. Party Poison frowns, and She finds Herself growing paranoid at the idea that She’s so easy to read. Or has Party Poison simply become able to read Her?

“Wait, how’d I get here?” They tap their chin. “I’m literally just at the club, at a party. No shoot outs or firefights. Why’d you let the lights go out?”

“Alcohol poisoning,” She answers. They blink at the words, then glance down at their still body. The lights flutter a bit as the lightbulb threatens to finally go out.

“Ah…” They don’t have anything to say, not a poorly timed flirt or joke about the situation. They just stare at their body, at the lifeless corpse laying flat on the ground. 

She doesn’t care about what they’re feeling. She doesn’t care about the why behind their behaviour, why they drank themself to death no matter how accidental it was, why they acted so recklessly, so much like the eager sixteen year old a year ago. She doesn’t care; it doesn’t matter. All She has to do is ask for a sacrifice and push their soul back in their body. They’ll fulfill their destiny no matter what. She doesn’t need to intervene.

“What happened?” She asks. “Why have you fallen so hard from grace?”

Poison winced at Her words. They adjust the prayer beads on their wrist, not daring to look into Her mask. “Just one of those moods, I guess.”

“There’s something more here.”

A long pause follows. Their eyes are locked on their body. “A little kid told me he wanted to be just like me. He called me a hero and I- I….”

They rub their eyes. Tears are sparkling down their cheeks, and instead of the usual fire She feels burn hot from within, She feels a frosty melanochany. 

“I don’t see the problem,” She admits. “Isn’t that a good thing? To be inspiring the future? To bring about the idea of a revolution within the minds of the youth?”

“No, it’s not!” They snap. They immediately lower their voice. “No one should want to be like me. I killed people.”

“But you grew-“

“But I killed. Yeah, I’m trying to be better and good and shit, but that doesn’t change the fact that I killed.” They rub their eyes. “I don’t… I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want people to worship me, to believe so hard and desperately in me. I don’t want to be a legend or a hero or a messiah or whatever.”

They scuff the floor with their boots. Glitter drips down their face from their hair as they toss their locks out of their face. “I just… I just want to be a kid.”

They hesitantly move towards Her, slow and careful. She knows the move they want to make, can see it from the way they’re closing the gap between them until there's a couple mere inches left. They just stare up at Her with their tear stained cheeks and watery eyes.

“Can’t you get someone else to do this? Does this have to be my role?” They clasp their hands together, almost pleading. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to have this power, to be this leader. Please, please, can’t you take this away from me?”

“We could get somebody else,” She concedes. “But we need somebody like you. There is no replacement for your role in destiny. There is no replacement for you, Party Poison.”

She shouldn’t do this, She’s leading them on, but She doesn’t stop Herself from grabbing their clasped hands with Her clawed fingers. Their touch is hot, burning hot, sweltering and threatening to scorch Her hands as their inner rage continues to stir despite the lurking melancho, and despite everything She can still feel those fires raging within, desperate to set fire to whatever has hurt them.

“It isn’t your time to give up yet. You have a life to fulfill, a destiny that lays ahead of you. You need to push forward, you need to become what the people see in you. You don’t have to be perfect- no one could possibly do that. You don’t have to be their messiah or their hero. You just need to be what they see- good. Stay yourself, stay good. Become better. Be the change that you always wanted to see, that you always wanted to inspire. You want to be a killjoy, don’t you?”

“Of course…”

“Then you must continue onward. People need you, Party Poison. You can’t give up just because everything is too much.”

Tears still stream down their face. There’s no point in this pep talk- She could just rebound their soul. She doesn’t have to give them a choice, She doesn’t have to give them an option. Their destiny is too important to let them waste it.

Yet.

She lets go of their hands. They remain unperturbed, silently crying as they soak in Her words. 

Suddenly, they crash into Her. Their arms lace around Her body. A hug.

“Don’t let your lights go out just yet,” She whispers, softly.

“When my lights go out,” they whisper, their breath hot on Her neck as they bury themself into Her, “will you take me with you?”

“You can run away with me anytime you want.”

They burst into giggles at Her words, tearful wet ones as they lean away from Her. “But not now?”

“When you want,” She repeats. “And I know you don’t want to leave just yet.”

They let go of Her, and She finds Herself not at all missing their touch, their warmth. They offer Her a hot pink lighter, and She smiles at the irony of the Flame offering Her fire. “Thanks for reigniting the spark in me, babe.”

There they are. She plucks the lighter from their fingers. She doesn’t have to do this, She knows this, but She wipes away a stray tear from their cheek. “Remember, it’s not your job to save the world. It’s not your job to save everyone. You can give up anytime you want. But that doesn’t mean you should stop.”

“I’m gonna change the world,” they state, almost like a threat. “Because no one else wants to try.”

She hands them back their mask, and they place a hand over Hers before they disappear.

-

She doesn’t meet them again for quite some time, admittedly. Which is of course a very good thing- She doesn’t want to see them all the time, it means they’re getting distracted from their destiny and that must not be allowed. 

They’re eighteen now, still young but not like their naive sixteen year old self.

They’re driving down Dreams Boulevard, heading towards Tommy Chow Mein’s shop to pick up some hair dye. Their roots are starting to show up, and they know Kobra’s about to get bitchy once his starts poking out. Ghoul mentioned dying his green, so they make an additional note to pick up an extra bottle.

Dracs line up the entirety of the road. Party Poison skids to a stop, curiosity brimming within at the sight. They should have left the radio on- maybe Dr. D knows something about this.

She sits on one of the vans, watching as Party Poison lurks close. It’s stupid of them to do this, because there’s way too many Dracs for them to even think about fighting, and they have no back up to help them out. But they creep along the edge of the line of vans, peeking around to see all the commotion.

That’s when they spy the Saviour to Be.

A Drac is pulling him from the arms of a dead woman. They were killjoys, used to be anyway from the colours on their skin, but now they’re clearly a bunch of corpses. The Saviour to Be screams in the arms of the disgruntled Dracs, and the three closest grunts try to help quiet him down.

Party Poison stares at the sight, taking it in. Two dead bodies. A little child being taken away. They don’t know what the future will bring, they don’t know just how important that child is to save, they don’t know why there seems to be something special about him, but they know. They know there’s something special about this kid, enough to warrant a whole army of Dracs to get him.

It’s clear that Poison needs to save the kid.

Poison shoots one of the vans tires, distracting the Dracs. Their eyes all move toward the tire instead of the source of the shot, and Poison eagerly uses this to their advantage as they slide over the hood of a car and begin to shoot wildly at the army of Dracs.

The Dracs try to respond back, but the surprise attack costs them. None of them are quick enough, not against Poison’s trigger finger, and they shoot down a dramatic amount of Dracs. 

The group holding onto the child makes a run for it. They begin to load up into one of the far vans, and Poison charges against the crowd of Dracs towards it. The van begins to chug forward just as Poison wrenches the door open to the back. The Dracs go wild, one of them screaming as Party Poison dodges the shots from the one holding onto the child. Party Poison shoots the driver, causing the van to start to drive in circles, before they shoot out the rest of the Dracs.

The child is screaming and crying as Poison carefully pulls him out of the van before jumping away. “Hey, hey, it’s okay now. I’ve got you.” The kid keeps crying, but it’s a lot quieter now, so Party Poison takes that as a win.

Dracs are sprinting after them and they charge right towards them. Their car is still parked far out on the other side of the swarm of Dracs. They need to get to it if they want to survive.

They shoot one handed as they carry the child, who can’t be more than three, as they shoot past multiple Dracs. Bodies drop like flies as bullets fly through the air. A couple manage to snag them, but they ignore the minor burns and focus on getting to the car. They need to escape.

Something olive green darts past their vision to the left. It’s oval and textured and- holy shit. That’s a fucking grenade. Shit.

Party Poison picks it up without thinking and tosses it right back at the Draculoid congregation. Just before it even manages to hit the ground, they hear a loud click as the bomb mechanisms finally go off, and they have a split second to try and save the kid.

They lay almost flat on the ground, holding the snotty kid close to their chest and keep their back to the bomb. They wrap their entire body around the child, trying to protect him for as long as they can. His sheared hair tickles their nose, which is the only sensation they manage to identify before the bomb explodes behind them.

They didn’t manage to get out of the explosion range- there was no amount of running that would have gotten them far enough. Fires burn their skin, melting off the flesh of their back and Party Poison just barely manages to keep in a scream. But they keep their hold, they keep the child safe between their arms, never mind about the shape they’re in. They’re burning, burning up, but the child is safe.

The bomb manages to decimate the entire patrol, but it also takes out every single car nearby. But that doesn’t matter much, because Party Poison was just burned to a crisp.

The Witch doesn’t intervene, not until the fires of the bomb die down, until all the shrapnel from the grenade has imbedded itself into the sand and their back, until the sounds of Party Poison’s haggard and strained breathing dies and the only sound for miles is the Saviour to Be’s sobs. She waits until their body goes limp and they nearly crush the child under their weight, until their grip loosens and they teeter into the sand.

She snatched the mask off their face, now marred with scorches. She tries to rub off the bits of ash, though it seems to be a fruitless endeavour.

Party Poison appears before Her, grimacing. However, they catch sight of Her and offer a bright smile. “Hey baby, all the angels say they’re waiting for you up in heaven. Did it hurt when you fell, darling angel?”

She can not have migraines, but She feels very close to having one. “You get burnt to a crisp by a grenade and that is your opening line?”

“Gotta make an entrance.” They blow a kiss. “But like, I’d really appreciate it if you let me go back. I can’t just leave that kid out there after saving him from those Dracs.”

“Ah, so you’re cutting this short?”

They laugh. It’s certainly not a terrible sound, though it doesn’t make Her would-be heart flutter in the slightest. “I guess I am. Can’t I ask for a rain check on this date?”

“Depends on your sacrifice.” She’s bantering, She shouldn’t do this. She’s an ancient goddess who has seen the rise and fall of countless empires. Yet. 

“Then I guess I’ll try to give you the most special thing I got.” They pull out a guitar pick. “It was Mad Gear’s. I managed to snatch it off him when he wasn’t looking at a concert last month.” They send Her a wink. “He was a bit busy, and so was I.”

She takes the guitar pick out of their fingers. It’s nothing special in design, but She knows the amount of music this pick has made, and through that music, the amount of lives it has impacted. She rolled Her eyes, but allowed it to pass.

“If this is all you have, then I suppose it is enough.” 

They grin at Her as She hands their mask back to them. Her Hands linger for a moment too long, enjoying the warmth that emanates from their fingertips as they brush against each other. Party Poison disappears from Her sight.

She watches as they lurch to life, rolling off of the child but still keeping him close to their chest. She can’t heal all their wounds, She can’t save them wholly, but She can fix them up enough just to survive until their brothers manage to find them. 

She perched Herself on a cactus, watching over the child and the killjoy as they bake in the sun. Party Poison tries to talk to the kid, tries to get him to talk. The kid just blabbers about their mom, about nothing at all, and Poison tries to keep their attention on the kid as he speaks. He doesn’t really tell much of a story, too scared and overwhelmed to give any answers, so Poison just holds him tightly to their chest.

They glance up, the Savior to Be in their arms, cradled. Their eyes meet, and She peers into them, watching the smoldering flame that is their soul flicker and rage within them. There’s a smile on their face, and She simply nods Her head.

-

She watches over them the entire time they are stuck there. Poison’s still too burnt to even consider clawing back to civilization, and all the vehicles were destroyed in the explosion. They just try to keep the kid alive, giving him their rations and water.

She knows their brothers are going insane with the fact that they’re missing. But it’s not their brothers who find them. 

It’s not until long after the child has quieted down and whispers softly to Poison as coherently as a three year old can. He speaks a simple story, that the killjoys weren’t his parents, that his mama was dead but managed to save him, and that those rebels were trying to bring him out of the city because bad men wanted him. 

Poison wants to keep listening to him, wants to understand everything they can about this strange child. But they’re being lulled into unconsciousness at the same time two preteens manage to stumble across their charred body: Vamos and Vaya.

She watches them try to take the killjoy back to their place, as they struggle with their weight and the small child teeters after them. They’ll be safe long enough for the kids to radio Dr. D, and Poison will be found and patched up.

She takes flight, spreading Her wings as She soars through the sky.

-

With the child securely in their clutches, the Fab Four become an even more prominent target on BLi’s hitlist. They know the power stored within the Saviour to Be, they know the power and influence the Fab Four are developing, and they know they must nip this in the bud before something impossible to fix occurs.

That’s when Scarecrow Korse finally gets assigned to their case. It changes a lot of things, mostly for the worst.

Months after they find the Saviour to Be, who is growing out her hair and has expressed interest in being called the Girl until she can think of a better name for herself, does She find them once again. The Girl isn’t at the diner with Fun Ghoul and the Kobra Kid when this happens- she’s right on the front lines with Jet Star and Party Poison as they get intercepted in their attempt to hit up a local market. They had been hoping to find a gift for the Girl since her birthday was coming up soon.

It’s the first time in two years Party Poison’s seen their commanding officer face to face, and all the confidence they displayed during the fight with the Dracs seems to evaporate once Korse materialised from a van. They shoved the Girl into Jet Star’s hands and chased after Korse, who lurked behind the scenes like he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

Despite the fear pulsing through their veins at the sight of the man who turned them into what they once were, despite the terror that he would reveal their darkest secret, would air their dirty lauding and point out all the blood that stains their hands, they manage to maintain a decent, cocky facade. They keep the tremors in their hands relatively low.

There’s too many Dracs for Party Poison to keep hunting down Korse. They end up losing track of him during the fight, and they frantically start taking down Dracs as quickly as possible to continue searching for him. He’s waiting to strike, waiting for the perfect time to break the link in their chain, because that’s how he operates.

There’s a scream.

Party Poison twirls on their boots and finds Jet Star crumpled to the ground, blood staining the sand and his jean jacket. He’s clawing for his gun, which must have gotten dropped in his fall and lays a few feet away.

Korse grins at him, yanks the Girl’s arm to get her closer to him as he steps on his back and points the gun at Jet Star’s head. 

Fuck.

Party Poison bursts into motion, ignoring the blaster shots nicking their skin as they send off a load of shots. Their hands are shaking too hard to make a solid hit at his target, but one manages to nick Korse’s shoulder. It does enough damage to take him off guard, and that’s all Party Poison needs.

They leap into action, shoving Korse to the ground. The Girl breaks away from his grasp and huddles next to Jet Star, crying at him to get up, get up, _get up_.

Korse and Party Poison tumble into the sand and the two begin to wrestle. Party Poison isn’t exceptionally strong though, and finds themself quickly losing this fight. They try out every dirty move they know, kicking him in the crotch and biting one of his arms, but the man won’t let up.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” Korse states. If he wasn’t drugged out of his mind and had half his brain fried from becoming part Android, Party Poison would almost assume there’s a playful hint to his tone. “I assumed you died in the desert, but here you are, becoming a dirty defector. To think that this is where my best soldier would end up.”

Poison feels the gun jam into their rib cage. They narrow their eyes and buck underneath him, willing to put up a fight until the end. “Things change, Baldy. Get with the times.”

Korse laughs at their words, something hollow and without much feeling. It’s almost worse than the malicious smile he wears during fights. “Things are definitely about to change, little soldier. Your kidnapped child is going to get reducated, and you’re going to lose your life.”

Party Poison doesn’t even get the chance to offer a witty rebuttal. Korse pulls the trigger, and all of Party Poison’s insides spill out on the desert sand.

The Witch waits, waits until the smoke from Korse’s gun dissipates, until Party Poison’s molten flesh stops burning, until Party Poison’s body becomes limp against the sandy ground, their eyes closing. 

She wrenches the mask off their head and sighs at the sight of their wounds. Poison is rolling up their sleeves and She feels an ungodly blast of heat radiate from their soul as a rage so hot it looks white burns within them.

“What a piece of shit!” Poison shouts. “Doesn’t even let a dying man say some witty one liner as their last words!”

“Is that what you’re upset about?”

“Well, all the other shit, too!” They force a deep breath. They glance over at their friends, watching as Jet Star keeps the Girl close to him as he shoots down Dracs. He had stumbled back up right after Poison had been shot to death, and Poison could see Korse lurking not too far away. “Fuck. I’m not going to let him take any more from me.”

“Then do you have a sacrifice?”

Poison dumps a couple of hair clips into Her hands. “Man, I hate to rush this quality time we got together, but that’s the best I got. It was from the Girl, as a thank you for saving her life.”

She clutches them in Her hand before handing them back their mask. “I understand. You have a destiny to fight for.”

They glance at Her, something lurking within their eyes. “Not a destiny. Just a girl.” They give Her a small salute before She lets their soul travel back to their body.

It’s rather satisfying to watch Party Poison tackle Korse again just as Korse is about to shoot down Jet Star. The Dracs number has dwindled, and if Korse keeps at this offensive, he might find himself losing this fight.

Poison spits on him just before Korse pushes them off. They scramble back, both of their guns pointed directly at the other as Jet Star cleans up the remaining Dracs. “I don’t care who you used to mean to me. I won’t let you destroy anything of mine, ever again.”

Korse gives them a snide smile despite the fact that his eyes are scanning the battle. “Give me time, and I think you’ll find that statement to be woefully ignorant.”

-

Korse becomes one of the very few constants in the Fab Four’s life besides hair dye, leather, motor oil, and Power Pup. He continues to chase them down, again and again and again, hellbent on terrorizing the gang of teens and snatching the Girl from their grasp.

But the most striking tragedy to date that occurs isn’t because of Korse. It’s a different exterminator who causes a calamity that impacts the Fab Four for years to come. 

Party Poison is nineteen years old when the radio transmission comes in. Fun Ghoul, the Girl, and them are singing a shitty rendition of the Kesha albums Dr. D has reluctantly begun to play after Show Pony won a bet between them. They’re having such a good time they almost don’t notice the way the radio stutters and static fills the waves for just a moment. 

“Bad news from the zones, tumbleweeds,” Dr. D rumbles. “It looks like Jet-Star and the Kobra Kid had a clap with an exterminator that went all Costa Rica and uh, got themselves ghosted, dusted out on Route Guano. So it's time to hit the red-line and upthrust the volume out there. Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close and die with your mask on if you've got to.”

Immediately, the mood dies. Party Poison swings the wheel around and the trans am takes a sharp turn as Poison begins to head straight for Dr. Death Defying’s radio shack.

The only thing they find there are half hearted condolences from Dr. D. The Witch hovers outside the window, knowing damn well the only reason that Dr. D is upset with their untimely deaths is that there’s very little he can use this for as material to further his anti-BLi revolution. Their end, though too soon, isn’t tragic enough or heroic for Dr. D to spin some rebel song out of it.

Cherri Cola and Show Pony try to calm the two down, but it only ends up making things worse. Party Poison, the Girl, and Ghoul are offered a spot at the radio shack for the night to calm their nerves and get them to rest before they make any big moves. They take the offer but refuse to speak to any of the other souls inhabiting the shack, and they cling to each other as the day turns to night.

Yet, when the moon waxes full and Ghoul’s tears have dried and his breathing evens out, Party Poison slips away from the Girl and Ghoul’s grasp. They pull on their boots, they shove on proper pants, and they quietly slip into the night. 

The Witch follows after them, curious as to where they were headed. They didn’t take the trans am, left the keys on the nightstand by Ghoul, and made their way to their destination solely on foot. Their expression is one of grim determination, focused solely on the goal before them.

She sees the speck of colour in the distance and She Knows what they are searching for. It’s the mailbox, a spiritual little shrine for those who have lost their loved ones to send letters through so the Witch will deliver them. She always takes the time to empty the contents and give them to the souls that reside within Her domain- She always picks up the letters and drawings the Girl creates for her mother.

Party Poison stalks right up to it. The Witch lands on a cactus a little ways away, watching as they slump against the metal, leaning against it as they plop to the ground.

“I know that if you want me to fulfill whatever destiny you’ve got, then they can’t be dead. There is no Party Poison without their brothers.” They glance about them, searching for Her. They can feel Her presence, likely from all the time they spent together from the excursions into the afterlife. “I know I’m not dead, but come on. Don’t you wanna talk to your favourite killjoy so I can bitch a bit to ya? I didn’t walk all this way for nothing.”

She ruffles Her feathers, which catches their attention. They glance up at Her, their eyes narrowed in concentration. She oughtn’t interact with them outside of death- it is not Her place to otherwise meddle in the affairs of humans. It is not Her right to speak to them outside of guiding their soul back to their body. She mustn’t speak to them.

Yet, She transforms into Her normal appearance. She does not sit beside them, only stands in front of them as they gaze at Her with an impassive and unimpressed stare. 

“There you are,” they state. “I’d say it’s great to see you, but I think we’ve got a misunderstanding here.”

“Is there now?”

“Let’s backtrack.” They tap their fingers. “You always talk about this destiny- fate, all that jazz. That means you know exactly how all of our stories end, right? You know exactly what’s gonna happen? Because you’re the Grim Reaper.”

“Yes. I know what your future holds. It’s something I look forward to.”

“My destiny… if I’m supposed to do so many wonderful things, how do you expect me to do them without my family? Because if Ghoul and Kobra really are dead, let me tell you, I’m definitely going to stop worshipping you.”

The idea almost makes Her laugh. She just tilts Her head instead, amused. “You are stronger than you think.”

“I can’t do this without them. I can’t.”

It’s funny to hear those words, considering the first draft of their story. In the original writing, Kobra Kid and Jet Star were supposed to die in the desert, ghosted out on Route Guano. It’s funny to Her, because She didn’t change that story because She thought they wouldn’t be able to fulfill their destiny without them- She changed it only because She believed it was a disgraceful end to Her characters, who had spent their lives bleeding in the desert only to be slayed by a single exterminator, a meaningless death. 

The very original story She had crafted, it was only Party Poison and Fun Ghoul who raided BLi to save the Girl. It was Party Poison who would lock the doors behind Ghoul and the Girl and whisper the fated, “Save yourself, I’ll hold them back” before Korse shot them. It was Fun Ghoul who was supposed to die sprawled out on the trans am as the Girl gets saved by the getaway car. 

Even after She changed the story, even after She decided to give Kobra Kid and Jet Star a proper ending, a proper death after all their hard work, it does not change much. 

“I think you’ll be surprised,” She answers back.

There’s a reason why She kills the Fabulous Killjoys in a particular order, why She was able to kill off Jet Star and Kobra Kid while Party Poison and Ghoul carries on. There’s a reason why Party Poison must die first if the Ending may remain true, if their destiny is fulfilled.

She doesn’t tell them that- She doesn’t tell them that even if their entire crew gets dusted, even if they’re the only survivor, they’ll still fulfill their destiny. She doesn’t speak of what is to Come, of how they will be the first to die when the Day comes, and why they must be so.

“Come on,” Party Poison moans. “Give me something here.”

“I can offer you no promises. Destiny is ever flowing and ever changing- nothing is ever set in stone.”

They stand up, watching Her. It is only in the literal sense do they look up at Her- they believe themselves to be equal now. She doesn’t dare correct them, that She is far above them as a goddess and as the one who wrote their destiny and created them. She ought to, yet She doesn’t.

“You can act as detached as you want,” Poison begins. Their hand reaches out, and She should yank away. Touch is sacred, just like masks. It mustn’t be treated so flippantly. She does not move a muscle when their hand intertwines with Hers. “I know you care about us- about me. You’re not heartless enough to have them killed off in cold blood.”

“If that is what is necessary, then maybe I am.” 

“If you killed them, then I’m going down with them.” There’s an edge to their words, a threat lurking beneath. The Flame is burning. They are becoming the fires that will rage against their body in an attempt of immolation. They are a dying star, desperate to end their dying days by imploding. “I won’t go down by myself, but I’ll go down with my friends.”

”I stopped your bleeding three years ago, while you kept screaming for revolution. I know you, Party Poison. You burn like the fires of a star- hot and self destructive.” She clutches their hand right back. “But you are not meant to implode. You’re not going to die by your own hand, intentional or otherwise. I wouldn’t allow it.”

Party Poison owns their mouth to argue, but She shakes Her head. “There are souls I must be collecting. I can not say that they are your friends-“ She shouldn’t do this, She shouldn’t give them any inkling of what’s to come “-but, you are right.”

She let’s go of their hand, stepping back. They hesitantly move forward, and how strange it is to suddenly crave a warmth She never had, never needed. “You won’t go down by yourself.”

She doesn’t need to give them a pep talk. She could slaughter everyone they know, She could pull the trigger and spill the brains of all their friends out on the desert floor right before their very eyes, and no matter what, they would still fulfill their destiny. It doesn’t matter what happens in this life to them or their peers- they have a certain set of morals, a rigid character. She knows they won’t throw away their life, not unless there’s a sacrifice worth making.

(And the Girl is worth it, to them and to the desert.)

Party Poison doesn’t say another word. She transforms back into a crow, and She can feel their eyes on Her as She becomes one with the horizon.

-

Jet Star and Kobra Kid are found a month later. Cherri Cola manages to almost run them over, finding them completely wiped out at the edge of Route Guano, nearly two zones over from where they started. 

Party Poison walked to the mailbox every night, and while She did not speak to them, She knew what they were doing. They sat there and prayed, and She listened carefully to every word.

She follows Jet Star and Kobra Kid home, watches over them as they recover and tell their exaggerated tales of their survival and initial fight. It’s a tearful reunion, but one with hope and celebration. She knows they’ll be fine by next week, that the Fab Four will be just as chaotic and fun again.

She’s sitting by the window when She hears the door unlock. She doesn’t acknowledge Dr. D as he slithers out of the radio shack, his knowing gaze settled on the horizon. She keeps Her eyes on Party Poison as they trap Kobra Kid in a vicious hug. Kobra Kid opens his mouth, and She knows the words he wishes to speak, the words he longs to say to his lost sibling, but Kobra shuts his mouth and just buries his head into their neck. 

“I see you’ve found a new pet.”

She does not like Dr. D. Never has, and never will. He has destroyed so many of the stories She has carefully crafted all out of a selfish desperation to win this war, to play his political games. He doesn’t care about the aftermath, he only cares about winning. 

She turns Her eyes from the Flame and keeps Her expression even. “So have you.”

“I knew Party Poison was something special, something important.” Dr. D’s tone is almost excited. “But once I noticed they were marked by death, by this little crow that follows them all over the desert like a love sick puppy, my suspicions were confirmed.”

“Do not speak to me in such a manner,” She reprimands. She has half a mind to fly away at his impertinence, but She remains in place. Curiosity is a terrible thing to become infected with, but She does wonder what he wants.

“You have something planned for them, don’t you?” He eyes Her, a knowing smile curling into his lips. “Something terrible, something absolutely dreadful. Their destiny isn’t a peaceful one, is it? It’s violent and bloody.”

“What are you trying to get at?”

“You follow them around, you watch over and protect them because you feel guilty.” It’s not a question; he says those words as a fact. “There’s no peace for them. You wrote their story without remorse, with unquestionable apathy, and now that you’ve been getting to know them from all of their deaths- and I know they’ve been dying, I hear from all over the desert about the legendary immortality of Party Poison, who never stays down- you’re finding them quite likeable. Maybe even loveable. And you feel guilty that you’ve cursed them to such a fate.”

“You don’t understand what you’re speaking of, you false prophet.” She ruffles Her feathers. “You know nothing, you understand nothing. You pretend to be a storyteller, but you are a spider who weaves webs of lies and pieces together stories which should never crossover. You destroy my creations over and over again in your search for false peace, in your desires to end a war. You have no moral ground to speak to me of apathy and guilt when you fruitlessly destroy the lives of those around you.”

“Maybe so, but all your grandeur just proves I’m right.” He smiles, sharp like the rusty switchblade that tore out Poison’s throat. “You’re infatuated with someone whose destiny keeps you from laying a hand on them. You’re a god, and you’re falling for a mortal who you’ve cursed. This guilt is your own design.”

She fluffs up Her feathers, unnecessarily agitated. “May all your air waves turn to static, and may your death be as violent as I foresaw.”

“It’s the only way I’d wish to go out.”

She takes off in a swirl of feathers and wings just as Show Pony opens the door. She doesn’t dare look back, doesn’t dare give any inch to the man She loathes more than even Korse, who is fated to steal the light She provides for the desert. 

“Whatcha doing, Doc?”

“Speaking to the crows again. It seems there’s a storm coming our way, though no forecaster could ever predict when this hurricane will land.”

-

The Witch is not a malicious entity despite the common desert consensus. She is no sadist- no suffering nor tragedy shall pass without having a larger reason.

She allowed Party Poison to be taken away from their home because She knew Kobra Kid was far too drugged to ever break free on his own no matter how much Poison pushed and pulled. It isn’t until he watches his older sibling be dragged away, kicking and screaming and being beaten down right in front of him. Kobra Kid would have never left the city if Party Poison had never been stolen right in front of him. He must become the Pillar.

Party Poison didn’t become a Drac simply because She wanted them to become a murderer. She knew that in order to survive, they needed an inside man. If they wanted to pull off stunts that will keep Battery City on their toes, then they needed inside information. And they needed fighting skills and proper training to protect the Girl, to save the Girl, to fulfill their duty as a hero. They must become the Flame.

She executed Fun Ghoul’s parents in front of him to ensure that he would fulfill their legacy. She had to make certain that he would dream of following in their footsteps of being legendary killjoys, and would follow in the career of demolitions. She needed him to understand how to survive, how to fend for himself and how to fight for others. He must become the Survivor. 

She pushed Jet Star into gang after gang as She continued to kill them off. She did this because She needed Jet Star to understand the simple mistakes that could go wrong, and needed him to be ready to stop them from happening. She needed him to protect the others, to have an experience that no one else has, to understand the dangers of playing the desert game and to be able to rectify the mistakes of his past family. He must become the Protector.

And She would kill them all off to save this desert. She would pick them off like dominos to scar the desert, to allow the Saviour to Be to rise above the ashes of their immolation and destroy the plague that has been leaching on them for years and years. She has to spill their blood, simply because it is their destiny to die. It is not because She loathes them; they have a duty to fulfill.

She did not curse them, She did not bless them. She simply created them to have a purpose, and it will be time for them to fulfill the destiny She created for them eventually. She has no guilt over the End, no feelings of remorse or empathy for Her creations who will be murdered in cold blood in succession, watching their family crumble before them until only the Saviour to Be is left standing above the ashes.

This is necessary. They must die for the Girl, they must protect her and keep her safe until they can’t, until their time is finally up. The Girl is more important than anyone in the desert- She must save the wayward souls stuck in Battery City, stuck in the Drac masks, stuck loitering and crying for the afterlife they can not receive until she fulfills her own destiny. She must save the condemned, those whose destinies have become muddled by unforeseen circumstances.

She does not feel guilt for the burden of a heavy destiny She has placed upon their heads to wear as thorned crowns. She does not feel empathy nor pity for Her creations which were born just to die. She does not regret that which She wrote.

It simply must be this way.

It must.

-

She does not love them.

-

Dr. Death Defying’s words ring in Her head even after weeks have passed. She loathes that man, who thinks just because he was a psychologist before the war that he understands the inner workings of a god. He knows nothing. He understands nothing.

She follows Party Poison still, _not_ out of guilt, but simply for curiosity. She watches over, watches as they go on more adventures and missions with their family, as they grow older and less wise and as they bloom into the desert flower She carefully crafted so many years ago. 

She knows they will meet again, and again, and again, ever colliding cars in the accidents of life. She knows because they are desperate not to self destruct, not to self sacrifice, not to throw away what they work so hard for, but desperate to save. And their desperation to save and protect overrides any shred of common sense, that drive to atone for all the blood on their hands makes their fear disappear in the heat of firefights.

And so they meet again.

Ever since the Girl began to express interest in learning how to shoot, the Fab Four have become completely split on if she ought to learn. Jet Star and Kobra Kid believe it to be a necessary evil- Jet Star learned how to fight at that age, and Kobra Kid thinks that any curiosity over any topic should be obliged.

Party Poison and Fun Ghoul have very different opinions. Fun Ghoul thinks that it’s unnecessary, that they’ll be around to protect her forever, so she can wait until she’s older. Party Poison doesn’t want to turn her into a child soldier.

There’s a tension between them when Kobra Kid hacks a machine and gets the Girl a gun. None of them know how to raise a child, what the do’s and don’ts are, and it’s impossible to know what age is too early to incite violence. Should a nearly five year old child learn how to shoot when a culture of violence has become so prominent that even the good guys are turning to harming their own comrades? When BLi won’t hesitate to shoot them all dead, has no qualms murdering children that seem to be too infected with the filth of the desert? 

None of them know the answer. None of them can agree on the answer.

Jet Star keeps pushing Party Poison to change their mind. Although Jet Star can shoot the farthest, it’s Poison who can shoot the best- their accuracy and precision does stem from their training as a Drac and an exterminator. Jet Star keeps begging Poison to teach the Girl how to shoot, because he wants to make sure that she’ll be able to do it well.

She watches the four siblings fight, over and over and over as they discuss what to do. They keep arguing, unable to come up with a perfect solution, a compromise. She knows it’s tearing Poison apart, the desire to keep the Girl protected and informed but the fear of recreating the past, the fear of becoming just like BLi who turned them into a soldier as a child.

Eventually, Party Poison tires of all the arguing and makes a decision. They’ll take the Girl on her first shooting lesson, but makes no promises to keep it going.

They take her to a secluded spot not too far away, near a field of ripe cacti to use as targets. They carefully show her the parts of a gun, carefully teach her how to handle it and how to use it before allowing her to finally shoot.

It’s slow, and even the Girl can sense that while she might be having fun, Poison is absolutely miserable. The Witch watches over in a Joshua tree as the Girl fires shot after shot, missing each cactus and only scorching the sand. 

Party Poison takes her hands and they try to guide her. They hold the gun together, and Poison whispers advice they learned long ago as they both stare down the barrel of the gun. They pull the trigger together, and she lands a solid mark on her target.

It’s as the Girl is celebrating does trouble come lurking.

Korse and a few Dracs are out on patrol and just happen to travel far enough to run across the sight of the two. A firefight bursts into action as Korse commands his men and Party Poison desperately tries to protect the Girl, sending off their own rounds and keeping her tight by their side. Their radio gets forgotten in the hail of bullets, and no back up is called as they try to fight for their life.

It’s impossible. They can’t win, not now.

There’s just too much going on- there’s too many Dracs, too many stray laser shots and lucky hits, and Korse is constantly at the forefront of their mind as he lurks about the battlefield. They’re human, they make mistakes, and they make too many during this fight as their nerves continue to fray over how to protect the Girl and get rid of Korse.

A shot snares Party Poison’s side. Another snares the back of their head. They’re not fatal, not yet, and Party Poison goes down with a thud but still remains alive. The gun falls from their hand, and the Girl sees them bloodied and injured, and she takes initiative.

Before the Dracs can over take them, before Party Poison can stop her, she snatched up the gun and started firing. It’s not much, most shots don’t land because her hands shake too much and her eyes are filled with too many unshed tears. But a couple manage to land, and two Dracs fall to the ground, unmoving, and Party Poison’s heart breaks at this sight before them.

A stray shot manages to nick the Girl. It’s only a flesh wound, but it still causes her to scream as she teeters over, clutching the blaster like a lifeline.

Party Poison catches her and takes the gun out of her hands. They fire a few shaky shots and receive a few more; the two get sent sprawling to the ground as Party Poison gets shot directly in the back as they shield the Girl with their body. They lay right on top of her, and she knows this situation is starkly going down hill, she knows Party Poison’s been hurt horribly.

“Pretend to play dead,” Poison whispers in her ears. “Like in those play fights with Ghoul. Pretend to be dead, hold your breath.”

She’s crying. She’s watching them with big, big eyes. The Dracs are encroaching them. Poison keeps their arms tight around her. Their blood stains her skirts.

“Never mind about the shape I’m in, I’ll keep you safe tonight,” they whisper. “But you gotta pretend, okay? Close your eyes, hold your breath.”

She gulps but does as they ask. She closes her eyes, practically goes limp in their arms, and holds her breath and keeps it shallow. Poison relaxes and moves just a bit more, staying right on top of her, holding her as tight as they dare.

“Good job, Girlie.” 

Their breath fades away, the last huff of air leaving their lungs and they close their eyes, hoping that when they open again the Girl will still be in their arms. The Witch remains on Her toes, watching as they grow limp, as the Girl prays Party Poison is just pretending like her, as the blood from all their wounds begins to slow.

She quietly takes the mask from their face and waits for the inevitable arrival.

Party Poison appears, a tired and haunted expression taking the usual flirtatious smile.

“This is shit,” they whisper, breathless. “We’re teaching her to kill. She’s five. She killed. Oh god, she _killed_.”

They stagger at the thought, trying to speak what’s on their mind. They gaze over at their body, watching absently as Korse kicks at their corpse. Korse inspects the two, watches them strangely, then sighs. “Hm. They’re both dead. The Director won’t be pleased with losing the bomb, but I suppose the rebel could still be salvaged. Get the body bags.”

Their gaze drifts to the two Dracs the Girl managed to nail. Poison squeezes their eyes shut. “She killed. She’s becoming exactly what I was, but even younger. I fucked up, I fucked up so much.”

“There will eventually be a day when you can not protect her,” the Witch finally says. Why does She feel the need to counsel them? This event doesn’t matter. 

“I know, I know!” They grip their hair tightly, almost ready to pull it out. “One day I’ll lose this fight. But I’ll never let them take the light behind her eyes.”

They’re crying, tears slipping down their cheeks as they hold their head in their hands. She inches ever closer, ever closer to the burning fires, the raging wildfire within their soul as they try to make sense of this tumultuous time.

“The fight has already taken so much from her, from us. It killed her mom, it killed the people who tried to save her. It killed Kobra’s missing sibling and Jet Star’s crews and so much. It just keeps taking and taking! I’m not gonna let it take any more! I’m not gonna let it snatch away her childhood like it did to me! I won’t let her become a child soldier, born for war! No!”

There’s fire in their eyes as they look up to Her. “I don’t care what I have to do- I won’t ever let her touch a gun again- not like this. This isn’t her fight. This isn’t her war.”

“You can’t coddle her forever, Party Poison.”

“It isn’t coddling. I won’t let a war ravage her life, not like that. I can’t- I can’t save her, I can’t save everyone, I can’t win everytime, but I’m going to try.” They wipe away their tears. “I don’t want her to be like me. I don’t want there to be blood on her hands. I don’t want that life for her. I know we’re stuck in this perpetual cycle, I know this war isn’t going to end anytime soon and that we’re stuck in the hell and that I can’t coddle her but I can’t let a five year old fucking murder people and I just don’t know what to do and- and-“

Poison threw their hands into the air, their palms like tiny daggers pointed towards the heavens. “What will save us?”

“You.”

They blink at Her word. “What?”

She doesn’t know what She’s doing. She shouldn’t tell them things, shouldn’t even be speaking to them. Just demand a sacrifice and go. That’s all She’s obligated to do.

“Everybody wants to change the world,” She begins, quietly, “but no one wants to die. No one wants to try. But you and your friends are willing to give everything you can to this cause. And that’s enough.”

She reaches out. She captured their hand, gently, feeling the fires lick at Her. “You’re doing your best. It’s a poor situation, and it’s not your fight. It’s not hers, either. But you’re doing enough.”

She’s not sure if these are the words they need to hear. She has no empathy, no feelings of Her own to understand the precarious situation they’re in, to understand all their swirling emotions. She just holds their hand and finds Herself hoping that Her words are enough. “Do what you think is right, not what others want from you. You’re enough.”

Party Poison cries. It’s silent, no sobs or dramatic wails. Tears stream down their face as they squeeze Her hand right back. 

Suddenly, their arms are sneaking around Her frame. Her feathers tickle their skin as they latch on to Her, their head buried in the crook of Her neck. She doesn’t cast them aside nor push them off. She just holds them tight.

“And though I know how much you hate this,” She whispers. “Are you gonna be the one to save us?”

Fire burns in their eyes, embers flickering and ashes curling. She can feel a fire burn so bright within them it nearly severs the ties She has on their soul, something so destructive it threatens to burn itself out. 

“I’ll save the Girl,” they state, their voice quiet but full of confidence. “That’ll be enough.”

Her would-be heart aches a bit at that statement, knowing what is to Come. They break away, though they remain still suffocatingly close, and She feels their heat linger even after they break away from Her touch. They slip something into Her crow claws, and She slips their mask right back, knowing that whatever they give Her is worth it.

They smile, soft, gently, before disappearing.

She doesn’t watch Party Poison jerk to life in the body bag BLi stuffed them in. She doesn’t watch them unzip the bag and claw their way out, doesn’t watch them frantically reach out for the Girl’s bag and yank her out. She doesn’t watch the two of them curl into each other and stay like that for minutes, just listening to each other’s beating heart.

The sacrifice was a gift from Tommy Chow Mein, not long ago. Party Poison stopped his shop from getting robbed by a couple of loner killjoys, and since he loathes being in debt, he gave this token to them and then kicked them out of his shop.

(He won’t admit it, but he has a soft spot for them. He knows they keep dying, has heard just as many stories as Dr. D about the mysterious revival of Party Poison during firefights, and knows enough about the desert to give Party Poison a potential sacrifice in return for their kindness. They remind him of a niece he once had, lost to a Drac all those years ago.)

It’s a ring.

A simple gold band, nothing inscribed. It’s aged and worn, having been well loved in its time.

She knows what rituals this ring represented. She knows what love is tied to its very core long after the original wearer left it and joined the afterlife.

She clutches it tight in Her fingers.

Party Poison and the Girl leave the area, though Poison sends one last quiet look to Her before driving off. 

She takes off in a swirl of feathers.

-

She doesn’t love them.

-

Dr. D laughs at Her. She finds Herself on the stairs of the radio shack months later, following the Fabulous Four as they visit Show Pony, who just got out from an undercover mission in a BLi medication factory. She peers into the windows, listening to the laughter of the gang as Show Pony tells a grand story of their time as a medication pumper.

Dr. D finds Her, slipping out of the party to harass Her instead of enjoying the time he has left with his peers. “Still here?”

“You ought to back off before I decide to rewrite your destiny.”

“Still as touchy as always.” He lets out a quiet whistle. “I see nothing’s changed.” He glances at Her. “Actually, that’s not entirely true. You’ve grown quite soft, haven’t you?”

She doesn’t answer. She keeps Her eyes away from his, away from the window, away from the red hair. 

“Your sacrifices certainly aren’t what they used to be. Remember poor Helena’s husband? You only brought her back to life after he slaughtered the souls of nine-hundred and ninety-nine evil men, and then himself.”

“Of course I remember the Girl’s parents.” She scuffs the window with Her claws. “That’s a different situation- she died and he tried to bring her back. I don’t bargain for other people’s lives- they made their choice. But if someone wants to save their own life, I won’t deny them.”

“And you certainly haven’t.” His eyes gaze back to Party Poison. “Tell me what has you so infatuated with them? What do you know?”

“They keep messing up their destiny and dying too early. It’s my job to correct it so they can die properly.”

“You’re going through a lot of effort to keep them alive. Must be an important fate. Will they go out in flames, like the Original Killjoys? Like Ghoul’s parents? it’s the only ending I can possibly envision for them. Not a peaceful one.” He taps the arms of his chair steadily. “You and I aren’t so different, you know. You don’t have to act so hostile. I want those children to live out their lives and fulfil their destiny, too.”

“You only wish to retell stories, never to create something original,” She chides. His obsession with recreating the Original Killjoys and replacing them with something better never ceases to annoy Her. These killjoys aren’t the original ones, they aren’t dying for the same reasons, they aren’t the same people. But Dr. D only focuses on repeating history to make history. “We are nothing alike.”

“Seems to me you’re just repeating the same old song as well.” He smiles. “But there’s something different this time. Because instead of ruthlessly killing them all off, detached from the carnage you’re about to wreck, you find yourself completely intertwined with them.”

He laughs, and She sends a heavy glare at him. “You’ve fallen for Party Poison.”

She ought to strike him down where he stands. Like in the old days, when it was appropriate for gods to end the lives of mortals who mocked and jeered at the very divinities who blessed them with life. Times have changed, though, and She doesn’t dust him despite the temptation, and doesn't even fly away like She should.

“You don't know a thing about this life,” She spits. “Not mine, not theirs, and not even yours. Spare me your words. Go spend time with the people in your life, while you still can.”

“Is their end so soon? Is that why you’re even testier than usual?”

She rolls Her eyes. “I have better things to do than waste them speaking to you. I have souls to collect and mail to deliver.”

Just as She begins to unsheathe Her wings, Dr. D gives Her a smug smile. “If it is any consolation, they seem to be just as in love with you.”

She just huffs and flaps Her wings, disappearing from the radio station.

-

Old fool…

-

This isn’t the story that matters. It’s the Girl who matters, it’s the Girl who is going to save everyone the Witch could not, who will free the souls chained to the earth seemingly without the promised, peaceful afterlife. She will break the chains of their curse and free their spirits.

The Fab Four are not the heroes, not the Saviour. It is her, and her alone, because everyone is capable of making the choice to be the hero, and sometimes those choices cost you, and sometimes they just end up saving everyone.

It’s about her.

She can not get side tracked, She can not become attached. They must die, they all must die, so the Girl can realise that she has the potential to save the world, that she doesn’t have to rely on others, and so she can use that potential to change the world. They must topple over like dominos, must crumble before the empire so the empire may crumble before the Girl.

Personal feelings can not get in the way.

She can not get side tracked with the minor details, the minor characters. Because the Fab Four are nothing but side characters, secondary to the main plot. They have their worth, She can not simply omit them from the story, but none of them are important.

They mean nothing.

They are nothing,

She can not get sidetracked- which She isn’t. She doesn’t care about Party Poison, doesn’t care about their crew. She doesn’t care that the fated day of reckoning is coming fast upon them (one year, 5 months, nineteen days, 10 hours, fifteen minutes, 47 seconds). It doesn’t matter to Her that She has cursed them all to a bloody and violent end, an end that will leave them without peace for a decade.

She doesn’t care. Because She hasn’t lost sight of the true story.

The Girl is the main character. She is the focus. She is important. The others mean nothing.

She doesn’t care about them.

-

She’s not in love.

-

Party Poison dies again. She wonders how much time She has left with them until they fulfill their destiny. Until they become cursed with the weight of fate.

It’s in the middle of a firefight, because it seems Party Poison is unable to fight without taking unnecessary risks. They’re alone this time, just taking Kobra’s bike for a drive when they managed to intercept a Drac patrol. Korse wasn’t present- some other wanna be big shot exterminator was leading the group.

Poison recognised them as Flare. They don’t think much of her. She’s nothing special.

But people don’t have to be special. Just lucky.

And Party Poison seems to be running out of luck quite a bit. 

It’s an all out firefight. Lasers fly through the air and the Witch finds Herself dodging stray shots. Party Poison makes a grand spectacle of it, spinning cartwheels and doing flips. They’ve taken a bit to something called parkour, a gymnastics type of athletics Show Pony’s patiently been teaching them.

They flip and spin with practiced grace, appearing almost as if they’re dancing in the middle of a battlefield. They’re always careless during fights, always flippant and reckless and uncaring. Death seems to no longer mean anything to them; it’s no longer something to fear.

She watches as they shoot down more and more Dracs. They’re nearly finished, down to just a handful when Flare manages to land the shot. It was accidental though, because she tripped over some rocks in the canyon terrain of zone five. She squeezed the trigger at just the right time, her blaster pointed at just the right angle, and it was game over.

The shot pierced Poison’s neck, and they found themself eating sand. It’s a quick death, nearly painless, and She finds Herself snatching their mask in no time at all, their last breath still warm on their lips as Her claws latch onto the yellow domino mask.

Poison sends Her a cheeky smile, something She’s seen thrown to many other Neon Angels and club attendees and Killjoys. It’s a smile full of teeth but little genuine love.

“Hey baby, did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” They crooned, just like one of Her crows.

“Are you referring to me as the devil?” Religion was banished in Battery City, but some pieces of some crumbling ideologies manage to slip through even BLi’s iron clutches. The meaning behind the devil may be lost to time, but the metaphor still stands.

“Only devilishly beautiful!” They wink, and She only sighs at their antics. “And it looks like I’m the one who’s fallen for you, anyway.” They pointedly glance at their body, laying face down on the ground. Flare was kicking their ribs, making sure they were dead. It seems to have become a standard part of BLi to check that the corpses are in fact corpses. Party Poison springing back from the dead time and time again has left an impression, so it seems. “‘Cause, you know, I fell when I got shot?”

“Yeah, I’m very aware.”

Poison laughed and edged closer. “Well, although these are never the best circumstances, I do rather enjoy our dates together. I could die a thousand deaths and never tire of your face.”

“I’m tiring of yours.” She wiped some of the blood off of the mask. “But aren’t you tired of giving away so many of your things? Doesn’t dying hurt?”

“Eh.” They wave their hand. “Strangely enough, dying hurts no more than just a usual injury. It’s like I’ve got a concussion- like, sure, it hurts, but no more than usual, I guess.”

They’re too close, just a handful of feet apart. Their eyes are twinkling, and She can see every individual freckle specking their cheeks, every minor scar marring what She has crafted. She can see all the stains on their clothes, the burn marks, the way their roots are slowly coming in, the uneven choppiness of their hair, the way those locks seem luminous in the sun.

“Those material items obviously mean a lot.” Their eyes drift to Her finger. She’s wearing the ring they offered to Her last time, just like She wears all the gifts people have offered Her, to a degree. They’re too young to understand the implications of the ring they gave, to know the rituals of old, to understand what having the ring on Her specific finger truly means.

“But.” They reach out, and She must stop them, She must slap their hand away. This relationship needs to remain professional, nothing more. She is only there to pick them up, dust them off, and push them back towards the ticking time bomb of their destiny. 

“I would give anything to see your face again.” Their hand intertwined with Her’s and they pull it close to their lips, bowing slightly to meet Her knuckles. It’s gentle, soft, but full of warmth. Fire’s heat but from afar, just the sensation of heat without the sense of burning.

She knows these are nothing but antics. There is no desire, no passion behind their advances. It’s simply a personality they adopted from the nightclub environment, something that stuck even long after they no longer had to serve that certain clientele. It’s all fun and games.

There’s a glimmer in their eye as they let go of Her hand, as their fingers brush against the ring they offered. 

“You ought to get going,” She finally says. Does She want them to leave yet?

“There’s no need to rush.” Poison waves their hand. “The Drac patrol coming to pick up my body isn’t going to be around for a while. Let’s have some fun. We have all the time in the world.”

She thinks about their offer and their word choice. She wishes it was true- She wishes they had all the time in the world to grow and learn and play. She wishes their time wasn’t going to be cut so soon.

“I’m afraid everyone’s time is limited. I do not wish to intrude upon your numbered minutes. Now, what about a sacrifice?”

“You’re no intrusion, baby.” They make no moves to dig around, to find something to give Her. They move directly into Her personal space, and She can feel a heat radiating off of them. “You’re a welcomed guest. You can take my soul anytime.”

It’s all just a game, just a joke. It’s exactly as She made them to be: flirtatious without any regards to what they’re doing. It’s nothing.

“What’s behind your mask, huh?” Poison asks, tilting their head. “You’ve seen me without it. What about you?”

“A face no living soul has seen for thousands of years. All gods wear masks. Mother War, Fear, Regret, even Destroya. To show your face to a mortal is an intimate act.” She grips their mask tightly.

“I’m certain that you’re absolutely gorgeous.”

“Maybe one day I’ll let you see,” She begins, quietly. It’s not a promise, nothing more than empty words that don’t feel quite so hollow. “But that requires a price. And you have a more pressing one to pay at the moment.”

“Always so serious!” Poison rolls their eyes. “Fine, put out your hand.”

They giggle as She does so. She oughtn’t let them boss Her around, ought to put them in their place, yet She remains silent as She opens up Her palm.

A paintbrush.

Poison closes Her fingers around the item. “You’re an artist, just like me. People say you write stories, that you’re not just the goddess of death but also the goddess of life. You create just as much as you take. And, well, as an artist to another artist, I’m quite enamoured with all your works. Especially me.”

They flash a wink. “That was a gift from Kobra Kid, on my birthday, during those first few months we were getting to know each other. I don’t remember telling him it, but he knew.” Poison smiles. “I’d never celebrated a birthday before.”

Her heart aches for them, and the desire to spill Kobra’s quiet secret has never felt so strong. But She swallows those words, remains impartial to the gift, to the story. “Art is the weapon. It almost feels as though you’re handing me a gun.”

“Which, I also did.” They give Her a cheeky smile. “Anyway, that’s what I got. Is it enough?”

She doesn’t have to think about it. She could shove them into their body without more words, without wasting any more of their precious moments. The answer will always be yes.

She balances the paintbrush, stained and splintering. It’s ancient, pre-war. She knows who it used to belong to. She studies every crack twice, every frayed strand of the brush, feeling Poison’s attentive eyes on Her every moment spent.

“It’s enough,” She finally says, and She slips it into a pocket. Party Poison smiles at Her, full blown. It’s something softer than their usual sharp teeth and cheeky grins, something different and almost vulnerable. 

She doesn’t hand them back their mask. They wait, patiently, wordlessly, as She acts without thinking.

Quietly, She slips the mask onto their face. It’s intimate, crossing a line She can not come back from, a line She drew Herself. Her fingers brush aside their bangs, licked by the fires of their soul. There’s light dancing in their eyes as they stand there, letting Her touch their head.

They’re about to fade away, and She pulls Her hand back only for them to dart out and grab Her wrist. Her hand remains mid-caress in their cheek as they hold onto Her arm and smile cheerfully up at Her.

“Love you, sunshine.”

They send Her a wink before She allows their soul to disappear completely. She watches their body arch back to life, watches them unzip the body bag they were placed in, watches them simply sit on the ground and stare at the sky instead of scurrying back to their friends.

She stays beside them, silent, as they sit there until the sun moves towards the west.

-

It’s not love She feels.

She doesn’t care about them. They are specks in the tapestry of life. They are a secondary character. They are nothing.

Yet, Her would be heart beats a steady drum as She continues to trail after them.

-

The Girl drops off a letter to Her mother.

It’s something She does weekly. Surprisingly, it’s usually Jet Star who takes Her to the mailbox, instead of Party Poison. Kobra Kid and Fun Ghoul don’t entirely believe in Her, Party Poison’s usually speaking to Dr. D, so Jet Star is usually the only one free.

But he’s an advice believer in Her. He used to send letters to his mothers years ago, a couple to his crews, and it was him who got the Girl into letter writing.

The Girl doesn’t remember her mom, much. She only knows her name is Helana, and that she gave everything she could to get her out of BLi’s hands when she was captured. The rebels that tried to sneak her out of the city told her many grand stories about her parents, but she can’t remember her mother’s face nor voice.

The Witch remembers her parents well. During the Analog Wars, her mother had been killed while pregnant with her. Her father became so desperate to save his wife that he called upon Her, and begged for Her to bring her back. She agreed on the condition that he must kill the souls of a thousand evil men.

He did so, and killed himself as the last sacrifice to Her order, knowing that after becoming consumed with bloodlust he had become the very evil he was set to slay. True to Her word, she brought the mother back and watched as her grief became a rage so potent it would turn her child into a living bomb, that festered within her until the day she became Draced.

The Witch has a bit of a soft spot for the Girl, she’ll admit. The Girl has interesting beginnings and an interesting end.

She slips the letter into the mailbox, just as she always does. Mostly they’re just pictures with a couple of words, but sometimes she does try to tell her mom stories. Although her mother isn’t dead, the Witch always picks them up and holds onto them in case of an untimely accident with her mother as a Drac.

The Girl doesn’t leave, though. The Witch sits on the mailbox in Her godly form, watching as the child keeps her hands on the painted mailbox. Her eyes lift from the mail slot to the Witch.

“I know you’re there,” She whispers. “Party Poison and Jet Star always tell me stories about you, but especially Party. They love to talk about you. I know you exist, even if Ghoulie and Kobra don’t believe in things they can’t see. I can’t see you, but I know you’re there.”

Jet Star remains quiet in the trans am, cranking up some Mad Gear and Missile Kid as he waits for her. He always waits in the car, patiently allowing the Girl to have her private moment. She keeps her eyes trained on the Witch, her voice quiet but resolute.

“I remember when Party Poison first saved me, and when they had to save me when they were teaching me to shoot. I felt their heart stop that second time, and I know something happened that first time. They died.”

She picks at the peeling paint. “But you brought them back. I know that. And I just want to say thank you. I see your crows following them, I see you trailing behind them. You watch over them, you protect them. I’m not big and strong enough to do that just yet.

“Thank you for keeping them safe.” She taps the mailbox three times, and begins to back away. “I hope you love them as much as they love you.”

She runs back to the trans am and the Phoenix Witch only watches after her, long after Jet Star smothers her with kisses and the trans am disappears into the horizon. 

-

She doesn’t love them.

-

But what else can this be called?

She’s supposed to be impartial, uncaring. She can’t afford to be side tracked by a sweet talking side character. They aren’t important, not in the grand scale of things.

It’s their death that matters, not their life. It’s how they die, how they topple before the empire, how they become the domino that will cause all of the major events to occur. It’s their corpse planted in a garden that will make the soil fertile so the Girl may blossom.

She can’t love them. If She loves them, then She’s going to want to rewrite their destiny, and She can’t do that. She can’t make the ink fade, She can’t tear up the pages, She can’t burn their book and start anew. It’s not fair to the people, to the Girl.

And yet She finds Herself growing weary of that fated day (seven months, fifteen days, thirteen hours, fifty four minutes, thirty seven seconds). She finds Herself longing to ignore that day, to push it aside, to extend the reign of the Fab Four just a bit longer. She finds Herself no longer excited for the day of reckoning, to watch Her story unfold.

The idea of watching Party Poison speak their last word, let their breath escape from their lips one last time, watching the blood from their head pour onto the white tiled floor, watch them slump to the ground as their soul slips out from their grasp, as they die right in front of the Girl… it has no appeal.

That day will be different then all the other times they die. Because it will be final, it will be bloodier and heavier and just different. Because they would have died for something, because they won’t have the happy afterlife like so many of their peers, because She’s cursed them into becoming a ghost to wander the zones without their brothers until the Girl detonates and becomes the bomb and saves the souls of the damned. By then, their soul has been twisted from being caught in two worlds, and they may be unable or unwilling to find the rest they deserve.

She doesn’t want to let their colours bleed away. She doesn’t want to see their body zippered into a white BLi bag for good. She doesn’t want to watch them be carried off along with their brothers.

She doesn’t want to say goodbye.

She can’t fall in love with them. She can not become tempted to rewrite the course of destiny, to unravel the fabric of this very reality, just to ensure that Her loved one may find a more peaceful, more long life instead of that cursed violent end.

She can not destroy all of Her hard work, can not fuck over the Girl, can not switch plots right in the midst of the present. This is the Girl’s story, this is about her finding herself and realising that anyone can do good and save the world, and this is about her saving the world.

This isn’t about them.

-

“Falling in love will kill you, dear.”

Destroya’s voice booms among the sun dunes. She rolls Her eyes at the metal creature soaking the sun rays, half buried in the sand. “I’m rather immortal.”

“Immortality doesn’t mean never dying,” They croon. “But you know physical wounds aren’t what I’m referring to.”

She remains quiet, leaning against the shopping cart. They’ve been friends ever since machines were created along with Destroya’s soul. It feels like eons, though She’s lost track of time long ago.

“Mother War will have your head if you act on any impulses,” They continue, musing. 

“And you?”

“Fear no retribution from me. Love is love.” She can imagine a crooked smile. “You’re the one who writes stories, who weaves the threads of destinies together. You know better than I that things happen for reasons. There must be a reason why you both have fallen for each other.”

“I’m not in love,” She argues. 

“So you say. But they certainly are.” Their voice becomes less static, less harsh. “It’s okay to be in love. But do not destroy the work you’ve carefully crafted. Your plans and mine, they are intertwined with the stars.”

“Oh, I understand.” She sighs. “I won’t change anything. Everything will go as planned. I’ll kill the four in cold blood, and the Girl will become the bomb. Nothing’s changed.”

“Yet, everything’s changed.”

“What’s that mean?”

She doesn’t expect an answer. She doesn’t receive one.

The only sound for miles is the quiet sigh of the wind.

-

The realisation stings. She’s never been one to understand human emotions, could never properly wrap Her head around the concepts of grief and sorrow and delight and rage. Least of all: love.

But now She understands. And if She’s honest, She’s known for years. She’s Known that She’s been wrapped around their finger, lovestruck but refusing to put a name to those feelings.

She’s enraptured with them. She adores them. She wants nothing more than to protect them from the wretched evils in this world, an irony that doesn’t escape Her. She pushed them into war, into violence and carnage and She will be the one pulling the trigger on the day they finally become one with the desert. She is cursing them, yet She wishes for nothing more than to bless them.

She cares for them. 

-

She…. 

She loves them.

-

Party Poison stands next to the mailbox. There’s no tracks except for their footsteps imprinting the sand, meaning they walked all this way once again. The sun is setting, painting the sky vibrant rubies and oranges.

Party Poison’s eyes light up at the sight of Her. “Ah, you’re here.”

“I always come to collect mail at sunset.” It is true. There is no excuse this time.

“Why don’t you collect something else?” They lean against the box, fluidly and lasciviously. They spend too much time with Show Pony. “You’ve just stolen my heart.”

They slip off their mask. The fated day remains only a handful of months away (four months, nineteen days, twenty one hours, nine minutes, seven seconds). There’s not much time left between them, not for a very, very long time. 

They’ve exposed themself yet again. They do so countless times, when they die and offer up their mask for Her to reclaim. And they do so without the metaphorical release of their mask; they lay their heart bare before Her every time they meet. She understands their intention now.

She does not think before She acts. It’s not an action that will change the course of history, it won’t destroy all that She‘s planned. It won’t change much, except it will change everything.

She slides the mask off Her face. In the old days, it was imperative to remain a faceless god among mortals. Being perceived so nakedly was believed to be too intimate of a concept for gods. After all, masks with memories are what help Her guide human souls into the afterlife, and there's a reason behind that.

But now, so many of the old gods have died, and maybe, some traditions must die with them.

Party Poison's eyes are wide. She does not know what is going on in their head, but She can sense an inner turmoil. Still, while the awe in their eyes doesn't fade away, a small, small smile lights up their features. She can not recall ever experiencing this feeling, but She's beginning to think that She wants to see that smile more often. Shy, nervous, and clearly flushed. Not quite like those flashy, no teeth grins that, while genuine, are common and no less rare than the grains of sand that lay beneath the desert sun.

"It's only fair," She begins, quietly, "for you to see all of me when I have seen all of you."

Party Poison's grin stretches, their cheeks slightly hued. "My, I never took you for a sap."

"I simply believe in fairness, balance."

"Balance, huh?" They lean in close, their eyes glimmering as their noses nearly touch, just a moment away from grazing each other. Years ago and She would have scoffed at their impertinence. But now… "Well, how about I give you a kiss, and you kiss back?"

"Rather forward, are we?"

"I've been subtle for years, and I've been loud for just as long."

"I think we know that the appreciation of the kiss would not be equal between us."

Party Poison frowns, clearly believing She is rejecting their kiss. She watches them fumble for just a single moment, a light in their eyes flickering before they open their mouth to speak again. She knows that if She truly wanted to let this- whatever this symbiosis is between them- die, She would have to speak but few words and they would back off. Because they understand unwanted advances.

She's leading them on. She oughtn't do that.

Before Party Poison could utter one syllable, Her lips match theirs.

Is She leading them on, when She wants this almost as desperately as they do?

The kiss is chaste. Their lips aren’t drenched in venom, they’re chapped and taste a bit of sweat. She knows well that this is tame to all of the ones before Her, that Poison’s lips have met others and received far less gentleness. But Her desperation does not equate to roughness. She knows She is not the first, but She has a feeling that She is the Only. 

They break apart. Party Poison is clearly, utterly drenched in shock.

"There's no balance to this kiss simply because I enjoyed it far more than you."

Poison seems completely stunned. A doubt She’s never had before creeps into Her head at the sight of their slack jaw and silence. Could She have misinterpreted their actions, their words? She’s never been good with human emotions.

“You…” Their voice is sandpaper rough, a husky quality to the already gravelly quality of their drawl. The simple word drips with awe. “You… love me?”

“You’ve charmed me.” They keep their heads pressed together, their foreheads touching, their noses nearly brushing. 

There are tears dripping down their cheeks. They shimmer in the dying light, just as the sun casts about a glow that makes their hair look absolutely flaming. 

“You’re an artist,” they whisper, freverently. Their hands are clasped together, almost in a prayer. “I’ve destroyed so many of the lives you’ve written. How could you love me back?”

“I’ve written and carved men and beasts. You are no monster, love.” The name drips from Her tongue like honey, and it tastes just as sweet. “Monsters have no regrets. Monsters continue to spill needless blood without remorse. They never change for the better, they continue to lust after spilled blood like moths drawn forever to a flame. But you have.”

She wipes away the tears from their face. They don’t move a single muscle at Her touch; She can feel the simmering heat of a raging firestorm churn within them. Their soul burns like the sun, utterly consuming. 

“You’re no monster,” She repeats. “You’re only human.”

There’s a wobbly smile lifting their lips. They reach up and cup Her cheeks. Their warmth doesn’t feel like the potency of Fire; She doesn’t feel as if tendrils of an inferno are burning Her. It’s only warmth, soft but ever present on Her skin.

“I love you,” they breathe, the words coming out in puffs. “I'm trying to let you know just how much you mean to me, but it’s hard, You’ve always been here for me. You always pick me up and dust me off and give me hope. You taught me kindness. I’d be nowhere without you.”

She smiles. “You taught me love.”

They kiss again. She thinks She could do this for all of eternity.

-

She can’t, because She’s cursed them all.

-

Poison waits by the mailbox every night, walking mile upon mile to see Her. 

Every sunset, they spend their days together.

-

It’s a week before the fated day.

It was a normal day, a typical drive for the Fab Four turned firefight. None of them seem particularly nervous by Korse riding their asses, or the amount of Dracs tailing them. They’re not nervous about today, completely sure of themselves and unaware of what this preludes.

It isn’t until they line up, until each of them are facing down a Drac and Party Poison stares down Korse, like a band of prep kids finally snapping and about to engage in an all out brawl with each other. It isn’t until their fingers are twitching towards their guns, until the Girl holds up the boom box that’s blaring Mad Gear and Missile Kid, do any of the Fab Four seem to feel a stab of fear.

Shots sound off.

The Fab Four fall like dominos, each one collapsing to the ground. Dracs fall and Korse stumbles, but as more and more Dracs begin to enclose around the Girl, it becomes apparent that the day won’t be saved.

She watches over the fallen, listening. All of their hearts beat fast and strong, their pulses fighting and living. There’s no death on this battlefield- the guns were set to stun. BLi is letting them all live only to lure them into Battery City to finally, finally destroy the true lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, to end their reign of terror in the city they swore to destroy.

The Girl screams as she’s dragged across the desert, away from her siblings and towards the BLi vans. Korse roughly shoved her along, grinning from ear to ear in an emotion that mocks maniacal elation.

A shot pierced through the desert, electric buzzing echoing.

Party Poison stands, clutching their side but still standing, still living. The gun shakes in their hand, shivering as their arms grow weak and the temptation to lie back down becomes more alluring by the minute.

The shot snags Korse’s shoulder. He doesn’t care much- it doesn’t harm him, really. He’s more Android than human. 

He stalks towards Party Poison. They keep their eyes defiant, but the gun clatters to the ground as they sink to their knees. Unconsciousness is bleeding into their vision, begging them to sink into its claws. But Poison remains upright, staring only physically up at the man that used to be their boss.

Korse leers at them. “I see your training is still strong.”

“You have nothing to do with this.” 

Korse kicks their chest, causing them to get sprawled on their back. He keeps his foot pressed against their chest, snatching up their gun as he leans his head into their space. Poison tries to fight, weakly clawing at his leg, but a dizzy spell is sending waves of pain through their body. Still, they fight.

“You’re just a broken weapon,” Korse taunts. “You’re just a fucked up kid with a fucked up brain. Don’t you want to be fixed? Cured?” The gun in his hand begins to buzz ominously, and his fingers switch the safety button off.

Poison spits in his face. “I’d rather die than let you people touch me ever again.”

Korse smiles. “Then die.”

He shoots them.

Straight through the skull. Blood and brains stain the desert sand and they immediately lose all fight. Their arms drop to their sides as Korse twirls their gun in his fingers, watching them go slack.

He shoots them again. Again. Again.

Shots blister their chest, one tearing a hole in their neck. Their body is smoking, charred from the gun. Burnt flesh pervades the polluted air, and Korse drops their gun.

“Please, for your own sake, stay dead.”

Korse waltzes away. The Witch’s heart throbs at the battered body before Her. Her fingers are already snatching up the mask just as their soul begins to escape their vessel.

A blaze is churning within them. The gentle warmth She usually feels radiate from their core has become a solar flare, something hotter than the sun. It threatens to burn Her fingers, incinerate the pull She has to keep their soul from getting lost between planes of reality. 

They appear before Her, fires raging in their eyes. Heat bursts off them in waves so thick She feels as if She’s suffocating. They are a supernova, threatening to burst, a Star on the verge of collapsing. They won’t stop until their explosion destroys everything in their wake.

“I need to go back,” Poison whispers, their voice shaking with rage. “Please, I have to go save her. I have to go fix our mistake.”

She knows if She lets them go, then destiny will be set in stone. She knows that in six days, two hours, seven minutes, and twenty five seconds, She’ll find their charred body laying at the feet of Korse, the Girl screaming at the sight of her sibling’s corpse. She knows that they’ll be dead for real, and She won’t be able to save their soul until twelve years later, and even that is not promised. 

She takes their hand.

Poison’s anger doesn’t dissipate, but at Her touch, their rage simmers a bit. “What’s the matter?”

For some reason, the words almost don’t come out. It’s become almost impossible for Her to speak, the words caught in Her throat. 

“If you go, you’re going to die.”

“What’s that matter? I just get to see you?” 

Dying doesn’t mean much to them anymore. She supposed that might be Her fault, giving them chance after chances.

“I won’t be able to bring you or any of your friends back.” She takes a deep breath. “Stories have endings. Your story and your brothers’ stories are meant to end on that day. The reason I kept giving you more chances, allowing you to bargain your way out of staying dead is because you’re supposed to die storming BLi and saving the Girl. Your story, your destiny ends the day you go to save her.”

It’s eerily quiet. She can hear the beating of their brother’s hearts, can hear the sounds of crows cawing in the distance. It’s so quiet, so deathly quiet.

“Everything you’ve ever done has led up to this moment. This is your end goal- this is your end. Your entire purpose is to save the Girl. You’re entire purpose is to…” It hurts to say this, but, “die.”

They must die. If they survive, if they manage to live, then they will bring about a revolution, and they will crumble Battery City, but it will be the wrong sort of succession. They will wage a meaningless war fraught with death and carnage and bloodshed, because that is their generation. 

They are the generation nothing, the children lost in the after scene of war but a culture of violence. Their job was only to protect the Saviour to Be, so she can bring about a peaceful end. She will be the saviour of the broken, the beaten, and the damned. If they live, they will only create a new war to cause more suffering.

It’s not their fault. They were raised to be a soldier. They were raised to kill, and waging a war is the only way they’d know how to fight back.

She knows that the future of that bloody revolution lies solely with them. Even if they are the only survivor, they will cause untold damage.

It’s not brushing aside the others. Jet Star would go mad at being the last surviving member of his crew for the third time, and he’d make sure he’d go down with his crew. Fun Ghoul would loose his spark, would go on a suicide mission to join his siblings. Kobra Kid would go hysterical at the prospect of losing what he only just managed to find again, at losing not only his sibling again but all of his new family, and would likely drink himself to death or go on a dangerous drive as a crash queen. She’s seen all probable futures, She knows that they have known too much loss to handle this cataclysm.

But Party Poison has a fire within them, a burning rage that will only die with them. The deaths of their comrades will only fuel the fires of their soul, and they’ll truly implode like the Star they are. They’ll take everybody down with them, they’ll crumble BLi but only after waging a war so gruesome it’ll turn into nothing but a blood sport.

Party Poison’s eyes are trained on the horizon, looking after the vans that carted away the Girl. “Will we win?”

“The Girl will survive, but you’ll kill all your friends.”

They don’t say another word. Silence envelops them. She can feel their brothers stir, slowly arising from unconsciousness. They don’t have much time (six days, two hours, two minutes, and five seconds).

“Destiny isn’t rigid,” She pleads, Her hands wrap around theirs. They won’t look at Her. “Please, my love, reconsider. You don’t have to die. You always have a choice. I only write for viable futures, events that may come to happen. They aren’t promised. You don’t have to let your blood be spilled.”

Party Poison looks at Her. Their eyes are watery, and there’s a smile on their face that doesn’t belong there. “Is there really a choice?”

“Of course.” It’s a lie, and She knows this, and She’s sure they know as well. Because yes, the lesser parts of destiny are relatively unwritten, and events aren’t inherently ingrained in the stone of fate. But there are some events so intertwined in this timeline that it is impossible to stop them. It is impossible to defy the course of history to be, and it is imperative to bend to the universe’s will.

If Party Poison doesn’t die, the entire future She has crafted will not bloom into fruition. The desert will continue to waste away, to suffer under the hands of the tyrants that left the people on their knees begging for salvation. The Saviour to Be will never reach her full potential, will never figure out her great and important destiny, will never use her power to destroy the chains binding the souls that are trapped in Battery City. Everything She worked so diligently for will be destroyed by one action.

She knows what they will say, because fate isn’t set in stone, and She sees probable futures, but that’s exactly it. Probable. Because She knows what they're most likely to do because She knows them.

And She knows, deep in Her heart, that She wouldn’t want them to look the other way.

Party Poison leans their forehead against Her mask. She can see the rise and fall of their chest, watches as the ribs beneath their stretched skin move as their hands intertwine beneath Her vision. She can feel the pulse under their skin, pounding away. They have life, and She is going to take that from them in the most brutal way possible.

They lift a different hand to cup Her cheek, and this is all wrong. She ought to be comforting them over the destiny She cursed them with. This is not right, and yet She does not stop them.

“What do you chose?” She whispers. 

Their smile stretches ever so slightly. “I chose to die.”

Of course they do. 

They are the Flame, it is foolish of Her to attempt to dissuade them from their nature. They are the catalyst that will fuel the cataclysm. They were destined to go out with a bang, to become the domino that will destroy all the hard work of so many others.

She grips their hand. “Then you must get back to living.”

Tears drop down their cheeks as they close the gap between their lips. It’s soft and desperate, wrought with untold fear. They’ve died before, but this is final. This is the end. And they’re not even promised a peaceful afterlife, a peaceful life with Her. She’s cursed them to become a wandering ghost.

They don’t know that, yet.

They move away, still smiling.

Their brothers have awakened. She can hear them making noise in the background but they’ve become nothing more than white noise. 

“Is that kiss a good enough sacrifice?” They whisper.

“More than enough.”

She moves their mask from Her shopping cart. As slow as She can manage, She eventually hands it over. Their hands brush, then stay in place. The heat of their soul no longer burns, just warms Her icy hands.

Finally, Poison makes the move.

They slip the mask on, taking away the warmth on Her finger tips. They give Her a soft, soft smile, and She wonders if they know it will be more than a week until they see each other again.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

They disappear.

-

They awake in their body. Jet Star cries tears of relief at the sight of them jolting upwards. They had all become terrified to wake up to the sight of Poison covered in blaster shots, flesh still smoking, pulse eerily silent, skin cold.

They grab their gun and dust it off.

“We have to go save her.”

Destiny is set in stone.

-

A week passed. They gather support and rally up supplies. They all know it’s a suicide mission, but they keep up chipper moods.

Dr. D doesn’t dare dissuade them. He knows how to craft this into a story of legend, into the perfect story of four martyrs for a heroic cause. It’s a perfect end, a perfect way to incite grief within the desert. Dr. D profits off this no matter how the tides shift.

The Fabulous Four aren’t teenagers when they die, though they aren’t far from it. But Dr. D needs to make this story as tragic as possible, as horrific as he can manage to lure the masses into realizing the horrors of BLi. He’ll spin tales of the Fab Four and he’ll tweak their ages a bit. He’ll call them children and teens so often the Girl will forget their true ages when they die.

They are young, there’s no question. Jet Star’s nearly twenty three, Party Poison will be barely twenty one, and Kobra Kid and Fun Ghoul will be twenty. But Dr. Death Defying will twist their story into one of legend and myth and tragedy, and he will tweak it however he sees fit.

He watches them leave, already writing their obituary in his head.

Hot Chimp, Newsagogo, and Show Pony agree to act as back up and an escape ride. Cherry Cola refuses to be a part of this mission- he’s tired of watching of violence, watching the murders of countless lives. He’s seen enough war in his life, and has long ago given up his gun in favour of a pen.

She knows that Cherri Cola's decision to stay behind, to remain callous in the face of their obvious suicide, will haunt him for years. It’s a decision that doesn’t lack regret. But it’s best that he doesn’t come- he was a sniper in the wars, and She knows that they’d have too high of a chance of survival if he tagged along.

They say their goodbyes, and they load up into the trans am. Music blasts as they drive towards their death. No one says a word. 

Mad Gear and The Missile Kid shakes the frame of the car. No one dares sings along, no one even taps their foot to the best or whistles idly. It’s a funeral procession.

She remembers meeting Mad Gear, all those years ago, not long after he had just lost his boyfriend to an atomic bomb during the first leg of the Analog Wars, before he became Mad Gear and before he began envisioning his boyfriend as the Missile Kid, a weapon to fall from the skies that will wipe the earth clean of corruption just as the first pig bomb destroyed all the good.

Zero Percent blares. She flies overhead, watching the tension slowly fade. Poison knows they’ll succeed. They’ll die, and they’ll sacrifice so much blood, but they’ll win.

It’s all that matters.

-

They die on their twenty first birthday.

Of course, they do not know this. Time is near immeasurable in the desert, and celebrating birthdays usually is done by estimation. They actually celebrated three weeks too early.

She watches as Korse pushes them against the wall, as the gun gets jammed into their neck. They keep their eyes defiant, chin up. They’ll die with their colours still tight in their hands and rebellion still on their lips. 

The shot rings out.

Kobra Kid screams. He shoots wildly, hysteria rising as panic settles in his bones over Party Poison, who slumps against the wall.

Poison reaches out, their hand pointing at the Girl, who watches with tears in her eyes. In their dying breath, they whisper one last word: _“Run.”_

Jet Star and Fun Ghoul heed their warning. Kobra Kid dies, shot four times as Dracs surround him. He lays on the floor, his blood pooling around him as the others race by his body, frantically tugging the Girl along who watches in horror as her world slowly crumbles into nothing.

Ghoul locks the door behind Jet Star and the Girl, quietly whispering, “Save yourself I’ll hold them back.” They leave him behind, and he fights until his last breath, until his blood splatters the glass doors and his body tumbles to the ground.

Jet Star saves the Girl. She gets into the van, safe in Show Pony’s arms, and Jet Star gets shot, and lays dying on the hood of the trans am. 

With his last breath breathed, the Fab Four are no more.

-

When a person meets their fate, when they reach their end, She must wait until something of theirs, soaked in memories, can make its way into Her mailbox. She can not meet them in the living plane, because their time has completely expired. Their salvation lays solely with the people they know, at the hands of those to carry on.

Cherri Cola is filled with regret and terror. He spends his years collecting items of the Fab Four, trying to find things of value to send to the Witch. He sends letters weekly, hoping one day they’ll reach their intended audience.

He finds items to give to Her. He sent Her Fun Ghoul’s favourite shirt, Kobra Kid‘s iconic red jacket, Party Poison’s leather gloves, and Jet Star’s aviators. He sends them all at once, hoping that the four could rest easy together in the afterlife.

The sentiment pulls at Her heart. Jet Star, Kobra Kid, and Fun Ghoul’s souls come easy. She delivers their souls without difficulties; the items are enough to call upon their souls and they are excited at the prospect of rest.

They are in the Beyond now, but She knows they are miserable without their other sibling.

It’s not Party Poison’s fault that their soul is so picky and particular. Their soul has been tampered with before, all those years ago as a Drac, tangled and frayed. They’re subconsciously trying to protect themselves, and thus will not be called forth until the item that holds their most memories is sent to Her.

Their mask.

But their mask is lost to time. And it holds a key part in the destiny of the Girl and the Ultra V’s and Val Velocity and Battery City. The mask won’t find Cherri Cola’s hands because it too holds a fate like its wearer. 

The mask will remain out of his grasp. It has a destiny of its own, one that won’t be achieved until a straggler killjoy finds the mask in a garbage heap outside of Battery City. Until that killjoy trades it into Tommy’s shop, who thinks it’s just another knock off mockery BLi makes for children to pretend to play villains and other children to pretend to be the BLi heroes that shoot down the vile killjoy scum.

It must reach the hands of the Girl. It will incite a fury within Val that will spurn the future events quicker. It will inspire him into stealing Poison’s identity and colour, inspire him to lead the violent succession Party Poison would have led had they survived, will inspire the Girl into realising his way is not the answer.

Val Velocity must steal their mask, must lure the Girl into fulfilling her destiny.

And everything will go as planned.

-

The Girl lays their mask on the mailbox along with Cherri’s. She’s finished her destiny, and now everything is up to her. The Witch watches as her mother approaches her and the masks become long forgotten as she begins a new chapter in her life.

She smiles at the sight. She always loved Helena, and She’ll always love the Girl.

-

Sunset arrives.

She’s delivered Cherri Cola’s soul. He feels at ease now, knowing he gets to join his brothers once more. Everyone will embrace him with open arms, and all of his guilt and sins will be forgiven and forgotten.

And now…

She picks up their mask, a sensation She’d almost forgotten about. Their mask is warm, a soft fire, a residue from the soul trapped within. She wonders if the Girl felt this warmth when she held this, if Val felt the fires and sparks within.

She takes a breath and pulls, tugging on the soul the mask anchors.

There is no response.

It’s been a decade. Souls who spend too much time between the land of the living and the land of the dead often forget the call of Her touch, often don’t understand the significance. Often, those souls become too trapped in their own grief and isolation to answer Her call. Instead of the burning fires Party Poison always threatened to sever their connection with, a frigid ice of sorrow can cause the line to snap as well.

Souls lose their tangibility, their will if they spend too much time between planes of existance. It’s difficult, becoming unstuck from time and space and life and death. It’s just as physically harmful on the soul as it is on the mind.

She tries again, a bit more desperate. They must come. She can not curse them to this life forever. She can not allow them to suffer further from Her hands. They must answer.

Still, not a spirit stirs.

Crows circle around Her. They offer their support, crooning words of affirmations. She takes a deep breath, Her heart pounding away in Her chest. Please.

She tries once more.

It’s faded, more shimmer than solid lines. The colours are washed out, the fires still burning but in desperate need of refuel. There’s still that summer warmth that emanates from their very core.

Party Poison’s soul glitches into existence in front of Her.

They seem exhausted, confusion etched onto their features as they glance about. They lock eyes, and Party Poison’s lips slowly curl into a gentle, gentle smile.

“Come here often?” They purr, their voice still husky as ever. They lean against the mailbox, not quite solid and their elbows end up disappearing inside. 

“I’ve missed you,” She admits, softly.

“I’ve missed you too. Being a ghost kind of sucked.”

“Are you ready to come home?”

“I’d come running home to you any day.” They give Her a quiet smile. “I’m guessing my brothers are all waiting for me?”

“Anxiously.”

“Then I get to be fashionably late to the after party.” They wipe down their jeans and give Her a dazzling smile. “Can I finally take up that offer of running away with you?”

“Anytime you want.” The sun dips below the horizon, and She offers Her palm to them. “Now take my fucking hand and never be afraid again.”

Poison’s hands interlock with Her’s. Their soul is just as warm as ever, like a sunny spring day. One hand reaches up and removes Her mask, a playful twinkle in their eyes as they keep holding hands and move their face closer towards Her.

As the sun's blood bleeds into the moon’s ink, Party Poison and The Phoenix Witch share a quiet kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> ”i think the phoenix witch is just a lonely lesbian,” i say into the mic. the crowd boos me. i begin to walk off stage when a voice speaks.  
> “They’re right,” they say. everyone turns. there, in the third row stands: gerard way.
> 
> anyway i have so much FUCKING time and i just keep wasting it so here’s me frothing at the mouth with this word vomit. i just hhhhhh love the Witch and i just thinks she’s neat.
> 
> i know the ‘demolition lovers’ is usually used to refer to ghoul & poison, but my original title was that for poison & the witch. fun fact.
> 
> as much as i tend to fixate in the Fab Four, i absolutely adore the girl and the fact that shes the important main character to the story, that this is her destiny and she’s the true savior. i love the message of the videos and the comics, you know? 
> 
> anyway right now in heaven party poison and the witch are being gay together and i think that’s good on them
> 
> hey also, in case u were wondering: the guitarist in the Lobby was jet star and his band was his crew, and the kid party poison saved that called them a hero was val velocity. oh yeah, it’s all connected
> 
> hey how many lyric references did u find :)


End file.
